Morgan Noll’s backstory as a professional artist is interesting: just six years ago, she had no drawing experience and was employed in an unrelated field; now she's an artist on Star Trek: Lower Decks. Her story – what she learned and how she moved into a digital art career she always wanted – is something we can all learn from and be inspired by.
In 2020, Morgan worked in theatre and was furloughed from her job as a playwright and venue manager when COVID happened. “I didn’t know if we’d ever be able to perform on stage again,” she says. “So, since I was being paid to stay home, I decided I’d use that time to learn a new skill set. I went from literally a complete novice to a professional industry artist in three years.”
She began studying on her own using online resources in May 2020 and enrolled in a two-year animation course starting in September 2021. “I graduated in May 2023 and got my first industry gig with Titmouse that same month,” she tells us. “I don't know what got into me back then, but I'm glad it did!”
Three years on, Morgan has worked as a background painter on Star Trek: Lower Decks, Season 4, Digman, Season 2, and various other animation and video game projects.
Lockdown was a period of intense, focused study for Morgan, and she quickly levelled up her skills. Below, in her own words, she takes us through some of the key turning points in her art-learning journey - those moments where everything clicks into place and confusion gives way to clarity.
If Morgan’s story inspires you, take a look at our list of digital artists you need to know to find out how other artists developed their distinctive styles. Read our guides to the best digital art software and best drawing tablets for the kit you'll need.
1. Use saturated colour to create zones of high impact
“Through the incomparable Underpaint Academy, I learned that saturation can be skillfully applied to areas of interest, and that the surrounding areas of a painting can be controlled by ‘linking colours through greys’.
“You use a neutral grey in the middle of your palette, and two saturated hues to the left and right of that grey, and you can build a harmonious row of colour swatches that are really just greys through taking those two hues down by 10% opacity in steps till they reach that grey in the middle.
“This is an incredible portion of wisdom I learned through Justine Thiabult’s class and allows you to make a really high impact in the areas you do add that pure chroma to.”
2. Everything has its own individual vanishing points
“Through Drawabox.com I learned that all objects in a scene have their own set of perspective points. This blew my mind as a beginner background artist.
“We tend to learn perspective with the easy-to-digest example of cities. This is because cities are usually built on a grid system, and they’re good for illustrating how 1P, 2P, and 3P perspective works.
“What killed me, though, was trying to figure out what happens when an object, like a turned cardboard box, isn’t aligned to that same vanishing point. This website helped me understand that a scene will share a horizon line, but that every object has its own set of vanishing points along that horizon!
“They typically all align if they are indeed part of the grid, but equally an object can be overturned, tilted, or at an angle and be plotted back to its own vanishing points along the shared horizon line. It sounds simple, but when you're first coming to grips with this stuff it can make a huge difference."
3. Learn about the physics of lighting to improve your materials work
“Through Schoolism’s Fundamentals of Lighting with Sam Nielson, I learned that I could essentially treat the rendering of matte and chrome objects in the same formula. That is to say, you can conceptualise a chrome object and a matte object as sharing the exact same paint treatment; it's merely a matter of how diffused or clear you make that treatment based on the roughness (eg asphalt) or smoothness (eg a mirror) of the surface.
“This is why you get a mirror-line reflection on roads when it rains; the roughness is evened out to a smooth chrome effect. Understanding the physics behind lighting was astronomically exciting to me and such a breakthrough! I could tackle any type of material with this building block!”
4. Paint with the colour of the sky to create distance
“The Same Schoolism course also taught me that atmospheric perspective occurs because of the amount of air scattering the light between you and the object. Learning that I could take the colour/value of the sky and use it to paint distance between objects in a scene was such a game-changer once I understood the WHY. “
5. Understand surface area to make things look real
“A mistake that I used to make over and over was not understanding that as objects retreat to your background’s vanishing points, not only do they diminish in size and proportion but also in surface area.
“This was a massive game-changer for getting things to feel real and lived-in within my work. I learned this from the incredible book Space Drawing: Perspective by Dongho Kim, an excellent guide on approaching perspective for a background artist. It really helped me get a better sense of scale and groundedness in my work.”
Plan your own learning
As Morgan has demonstrated, there are plenty of high quality online resources available for learning the skills to be a professional artist. If you want to dip your toe in for free, take a look at our list of tutorials for learning art fundamentals, or our Procreate tutorials hub.
