Ghibli Background Art Studies

The Ghibli posters, made for my school's yearbook, were inspired by the work of Kazuo Oga, one of the background artists for Studio Ghibli. To begin, I sketched the composition of the scene. Because Studio Ghibli movies require so many backgrounds, the artists often have to complete a background in less than an hour. By studying how they painted their backgrounds, I was able to dissect what made their paintings so beautiful, which I then applied to my own background art. Once the background art is finished, the animators add their animation layers (the characters and other moving objects), which are painted on top of transparent plastic sheets known as cells. Because I did not have the right plastic, I did the animation layer in Procreate. When I watched the new Ghibli movie, I completely lost track of the plot because I was watching the background art.