Letter #1 - Backgrounds:

My question is, how do you do the wonderful backgrounds in your art? I've noted that although some obviously use inking, some don't; or at least appear to not have been inked. I love the lighting and shadow effects you guys have done, and I'm really curious as to how they are done. Manually on Photoshop? Excessive filters? Pre-drawn or painted? Using ultra-secret utensils used and made on the planet Gorp?

Thanks for any help you can provide!
-Katura

Answer by Matt Holmberg:

We do them in Photoshop. The trick is to sketch out a rough B.G. (background) idea on a layer above the B.G. layaer and then to "paint" it in on th B.G. layer. I for one dont use filters at all but experimenting with differant layer types yielded good results! as for the light and shadow it is much the same as the charecter coloring just base/multiply/dodge!

- Matt Holmberg