The Polar Bear Prince

Here's the creative process to design backgrounds for a 2D animated (or traditional hand-drawn) movie: The artists first get the thumbnail picture from the storyboard they need to create the set from. For this shot, I've made this first proposition (second illustration). Then the background supervisor or the art director gives their comments to me: "Give a reason to this tree to have fallen. Make it old and torn." "Add details on the foreground." "Add light spots making their way through the canope." ... The final design (third illustration) will then be put in color by the color department of pre-production.