Scenebuilding

This is one of the more prevalent issues among newer SFMers, the lack of scene organization, and keeping a natural look to the scene. This means placing common items you'd expect or see fit for a lumberjack in need of heavy tools, A computer geek who likes to collect figures etc. This doesn't mean you have to decorate the whole area, only just what's in the view of your Camera. Always to keep things looking natural.Simple pose + Background: Here, you just have to manipulate the colors in your lighting, apply a few volumetrics, some stronger aperture to bring focus to the character, like this Demoman here.Scenebuild + Natural Lighting:There are a lot of familiar props "scene" here (hah) and a lot of them have been resized to be depicted as mini-figures, and collectors items. The use of posters, an added bookshelf layed out with his personal items. Nothing is overcrowded, and is spaced in accordance to what the camera sees, not how it actually looks from different angles. Main sources of light come from the window (and the one on the right of the bookshelf that nobody knows if it exists or not). Tuck stuff in within the Camera view. Remember, an objects position only matters if it can be seen from the camera, so don't worry about scenebuilding outside the camera view.Further examples: