So, what we're going to do in today's lesson is learn how to make a lovely "outside field" type thing so we can use this to make our comics look nice and pretty. Obviously you'll need Photoshop. I'm using version 7, so I'm not sure about lower versions. Anyway, let's go.

Open up a new document. If you're putting this as one panel in your comic, it'll usually be about 196x196 pixels in size, but you can do whatever.

Now, we're going to put some nice soft clouds in the sky. Make your foreground colour white, and your background colour a soft blue.

Go to Filter>Render>Clouds and you'll get something like this. If it's not quite right, go to Filter>Render>Clouds again until you get the desired effect.

Right, we've got our lovely blue sky. Now all we need's our grass. Go to the brush tool, and then below your menu bar should be the options. In the "Brush:" option, look for this one:

It's called "Dune Grass." The size of 112 is way too big, however. Change it to about 30-50. Now, head back down to your colours and change them so they're two different shades of green.

Now, with the brush tool still selected, start clicking/dragging along the bottom of your picture. Voila! Instant grass!

Keep dragging until you've filled up about 1/5 of the bottom of your panel. Now, it's time to insert the sprite.

Except now the sprite's got a whopping great chunk of white space around him. That's easy fixed, though. Click on the magic wand tool, click the white space, and delete.

Now, deselect the sprite (use the select tool and click away from the sprite) and use the arrow tool to position him where you want him. It's almost done, but it looks like we've just stuck him on a panorama (which, in all truth, is exactly what we've done :O )

Create a NEW LAYER (Layer>New>Layer ...) and get out the trusty brush tool again. Now, just colour over your sprite's legs. Voila! He's standing IN the grass!

Now just add some text, and you're done!

Variations can be done - make the foreground/background colours different in each instance. Make the sky orange/red with purply clouds for a dawn/dusk scene, make the grass red/orange for dry, crackly grass.

Have fun! Post your finished products in the thread in Information Station at the BnG forums.