I was inspired by the fact that Igarashi Daisuke does a lot of his expansive landscapes and detailed backgrounds with A BALLPOINT PEN. HOLY CRAP!

A lot of mangaka use g-pens for their backgrounds or an assortment of difficult to use pens. I usually use a g-pen or a fountain pen for my backgrounds and it is a hassle because sometimes I use up all the ink and they are expensive and yadda yadda. The fact that I can just use a ballpoint pen which has a completely different grip and feel is MIND BLOWING. Once I learned of this detail I could not sleep and just kept dreaming about ballpoint pens.

Thus I decided to do some outdoor studies in the style of Igarashi Daisuke, drawing with a ballpoint pen. I think I want to try doing these more often cause it is a good training for the eye and hand. I need to do interiors, though. Interiors are the bane of my existence (not really, I just don't like straight lines). This gives me a lot more confidence in backgrounds.

Don't get me started on what Inio Asano does though...>3>

Actually yeah I got started. He takes photographs and then photoshops them to look more like a mangapage and then goes over them, adds in the characters, adds in extra textures and other details and voila. Page is finished. He can do a super freaking detailed page in about 5 hours whereas say Igarashi Daisuke or somebody takes about 12 hours building their masterpiece.

That is the technique I want to try next, but I feel I might rely on it too much so I need to practice my mind of being able to come up with backgrounds and things that don't exist.

In this one I did add a girl to the background who doesn't exist. I hope it gives a manga-style sort of effect which is what I am working on.