Trees, yup trees.

So I have been pretty pleased with my character drawings, steadily improving and I think I have certainly developed a style for them. That said I really feel that my backgrounds could really do with improving so I have decided to heavily focus on backgrounds, starting with trees.

Below is the first tree I drew, and yes it is heavily influenced by Skottie Young's amazing X-Men cover as I do believe it really helps you explore a subject when you are enjoying what you're looking at and his work has always inspired me to pick up a pencil.

It is the first one I drew but the second one I coloured, I think the shading on the branches under the foliage is a lot better on this one.

This is the second tree I drew but the first one I coloured, based on the elements for the first. I think it is a more rounded tree. I built it on two layers of paper; tree and leaves, colouring it in photoshop.

It has been great fun so far, and I thing I will now move on to looking at some other style trees I like from of my favourite artists.

Added later.

So I decided to have a look at "Adventure Time" trees, which I also love. They are very strange and like most things in that cartoon very suggestive. I haven't added the leaves that will come later if I want to. I like them and even though I used the exact same colours, they have come out completely different. There are some rocks too. Things are getting exciting.