My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Backgrounds

Just like Gravity Falls, this show also has backgrounds that stand out very well to me. As you can see from the image, it's a very different style to Gravity Falls, a lot more loose and stylised. I wanted to look at these backgrounds because they are made using Flash. Look at how well they are made and how they really bring the world to life. The textures are simple vector lines, curves, and swirls. They're simple textures but actually really effective at making the objects in the background more or less solid. The textures for the wood are close enough to how wood looks in real life, rough surface with several swirls on it. Finally, The far out landscapes, hills, and clouds make the world look vast and open.

Gravity Falls Backgrounds

I've been watching a lot of Gravity Falls throughout the holidays. I absolutely love this show, it's a fun and atmospheric show, that's well-written and has a clever narrative; as a kid's show it's not patronising, is a good introduction to a lot of mature plot elements and complex characterisation. On top of everything else, the animation is fantastic. The backgrounds in particular I love, they are just so beautifully drawn and add a lot to the mysterious atmosphere.

This image actually works both as a beautiful drawing and as a chilling background. It works so well with the tone they were trying to create, for what goes on deep in the woods. 

This background is used to establish location quite a lot. The trees in the background appear as anonymous as ever, and the way they fade, the further into the background they go, creates a sense of isolation, the feeling of being lost in the middle of nowhere, and that the further into the woods they go the more mysteries they will find. And on a side-note, I love the little joke with the sign "Mystery Shack" spelling out "Mystery Hack" when the "S" falls off.