Matte painting is important and a good method to use in creating your anime backgrounds.  If you read alot of webtoons, manga and watch anime you notice often times the artists will trace over real life backgrounds for speed, accuracy and a nice look.  Look if it is good enough for the pros to do then it should be good enough for you to use.  Just saying.

Hey ya’ll.  I was doing some research on making Anime style backgrounds.  After all your characters have to live somewhere.   Give them a home and place to interact with in this awesome tutorial.

Here is a link to a whole boatload of tutorials

http://www.mclelun.com/

There are tons of tutorials that you can use for your manga or your anime series.

I really love his work.  I like how he uses 3d as a reference and in some cases as a render.    His website has extensive tutorials.  Go visit today and give your characters a place to live.