My take on scenery in art and story-telling (as well as my experience):
I really love drawing scenery. This wasn’t always the case for me.

I just had a moment which changed my mindset in regards to art. I’m sure you can relate. Not just to art and scenery but anything. And that moment for me was when I watched “Made in Abyss”. The very first episode captured my interest and lured me into the world like the Abyss does to its cave delvers. It was the sunrise, the way they animated the sunlight crawled atop the roof of each building and finally revealed the abyss. I never knew that scenery could be this amazing in an anime (Japanese animated show).

When watching a show or movie, details such as fauna, plants, the physical structure of the caves and crevices can be overlooked. But it’s what makes the world believable. Why are the animals shaped that way? Why are the plants this tall and this colour? How does the animal hunt? How does the animal sound? Artists who explain these in depth are rare. Some artists don’t even care about background or scenery when it comes to story-telling.

I used to not care about scenery and world-building. I was more of a “Draw characters and faces” kinda guy. But without the characters interacting with things other than people, it’s almost impossible to really get a sense of “world”.

(My role models, who I look up to):
After I was in pure awe from the dawn scene from Made in Abyss, I began to venture out into the “background and scenery” section of the art world, like a child trying out a new genre of book. And I loved it.
Artists such as:
Yoshida Seiji
Tsukushi Akihito
Demizu Posuka

blew my mind. Each drawing was a story. A character and a world. Man I just can’t express enough how much I love these artworks.
(Please go check them out).

A completely different note, my sketch to final:
I occasionally (when I have time/little homework) sketch random things on my iPad. This time it was a blurry idea of a forest. It came out “OK”. I got the basic idea of the composition, though it was a mindless doodle. You can probably see it somewhere on this post.

I didn’t plan on finishing it but I ended up spending 3 more hours to “complete” it because I felt like an irresponsible parent forgetting about their child in the shopping mall.

Here it is:
(Again, probably somewhere on this post)