today i did just the tiniest bit of help with that friend's new game, and afterwards mostly commit my time to art. i'm trying to learn some stuff about backgrounds right now, as it's an area i've been weak in for a long time, and i'd like to be able to paint game environments for design work.

i suspect that a lot of what i need to understand is in mindset. i can see the shapes and colors of a real life photo of the environment i want, or even look up a painting of something similar, but translating that into a series of brush strokes is very difficult for me. i can probably take better advantage of my layers, but beyond that, i need to understand how to blend things together and create the shapes and tones that make something appear real.