Tea Group Project - Paper Cut Backgrounds

I was assigned the job of creating the paper cut backgrounds for our group project. I volunteered myself for the role as I like putting in lots of detail, I want to get better at making backgrounds, and I have done paper cuts for a while so I don't find them too difficult.

I made the first one with another team member (Cesca). We worked with the rest of the team to figure out the colour schemes, which will help with the colours of the characters and how they contrast from, or fit in to, the backgrounds. For the kitchen we kept the colours quite simple. All the objects are green, but there are elements of black so there's some contrast in tones. I also used tracing paper for the TV to create a muted version of the green paper.

Paper Cut Kitchen Background

Kitchen Template

I also created the background for the alleyway, and I chose lots of muted tones to make a 'shady' atmosphere, which fits with the scene. The bin is the main focus, so I used the brightest colour in the scene for it. I struggled with how to approach making the pipe, but in the end I just inverted the colours of the wall and road to make it visible. I didn't have many variations of coloured paper, and I wanted to keep the colours in this scene muted, so I used the same paper for the alleyway entrance, and I will edit the tones on Photoshop.

Paper Cut Alleyway Background

Alleyway Template

I designed the tea bust background as well. In this scene elderly women are busted for drinking tea, so I made the scene look like an elderly woman's living room. Using references I made sure I included the essentials: plates hung up, picture frames, table cloth, curtains on doors, styled lamps, plants, and a side table. Usually these living rooms are filled with stuff till they are almost overwhelming, but I didn't want to make the scene too busy otherwise once the characters are animated in it would become very confusing. Again, I didn't have many coloured paper to work with, so the ceiling and floor have very similar tones, which I will edit. I wanted to make some floral patterns on the curtains, but in less vibrant pink and greens, so I will make these on Photoshop too. Like the other backgrounds, I kept the tones simple by using just purple, pink, green, yellow and white. The scene was originally going to be blue instead of purple, but I thought the purple worked better with the other colours, and from reference photos I found purple is used more than blue in these environments.

Paper Cut Tea Bust Background

Tea Bust Template