Hello, I want to discuss something with other fellow VN makers. See, I've been having trouble with drawing backgrounds. I've been watching tutorials on the subject and noticed a trend of sorts.

Some of the tutorials did paint overs. If you don't know what a paint over is, it went you take an existing photo and manipulate and paint over it. Here is an example.





That being said, I tried it for myself. Here's the result





What I want to know is your stance on using paintovers in visual novels or just how you view paintovers in general.

I think that is fine, as long as you own the photo you took. Is this more asking permission to use this method or are we talking about ethics of using artwork that are paint overs?

I was thinking about both. I just wanted others opinions on the ethics as well as using them in works like visual novels.

it's totally fine for both as long as it's not from copyrighted photos. which means that in your projects you can use paintovers of photos you took or photos that are free to use and to edit

I agree. I noticed some people look down on paint overs since according to them, it's not considered art and since you're painting over something, it makes you lazy. I disagree with this because paint overs are useful when you're on time constraints or if you're like me and can't draw backgrounds well yet.

i think people complain too much about everything lol i've seen various people claiming that only traditional art is true art and that digital art is not art. i admit that paint over is less amazing that actual original backgrounds, but i believe it's totally legit if you need it for a game/project/whatever and you're not doing it for the sake of showing off skills

I 100% agree with Fluff on that last note

Same. The funny thing is that lots of professional artist use this method or something similar for their works.

i believe they sometimes do it for anime backgrounds too? i've seen people comparing anime screenshots with real places and they fit for everything, so i suppose it's kinda paintover

I dont see why not..... as long as you wont have any copyright problem, just go ahead. Why would you care for somebody who looked down upon your work. Its not like you are doing your work for them or get paid by them. 

Just sliding in to appreciate the paintover art. The backgrounds look awesome, teach me your ways...

lol, thanks. To be honest, Uping the saturation and contrast does a lot. I just added the sky, repainted the road and the background. Also adding more highlights, shadows and airbrushing come color works fine too. It's a long process. It was my first attempt so i don't know much.

I started out doing paintovers -- it was a good jumping off point for getting into digital art, and now I can do halfway decent BGs without paintover. So, not only do I think it's valid to use in VN (as long as the photo is okay to be using) I think you can learn a lot about digital art, and it might be more approachable for new artists than starting from scratch. 

Ah I'm also gonna do paint overs for my upcoming vn :0
Totally a pain while looking for free stuff but it's also a practice on drawing bgs
Tho it also takes time to use your imaginative way of drawings bgs, I've done 4 using the same place and just changed and added effects to create the Morning|Noon|Night setting. Plus, it's drawn by a mouse, so I got really lazy and tried using paint over art since I chose an okay image.