Backgrounds will always serve you well! Plus, I think it is just more visually interesting when the characters actually inhabit the space (like in this picture), as opposed to just floating on white.

Not that the floating-on-white is bad, just this gives the optic nerves more jingling!

I think no backgrounds is something really easy to do, not just because you don't have to think through more work - but also because greater depth of field will mean less detailed figures, which if you're really into drawing characters like me, is something you're probably going to avoid. And, if I draw a character with nothing else on the page, it automatically "pops" to some extent - so even though I might be really hampering myself, it still looks good to me? If that one makes sense.

The cool thing about backgrounds is that you can totally cheat with colour and/or light and drag the focus back to the characters, too. In a lot of my stuff I like to do the shading that matches the light source, but the bugger around with it more until some of my stuff gets the focus I want. Though I've been guilty of not doing that as much as I should in the last few years, either.

I think your explanation makes total sense, and it is also rewarding to do the character with the white and have it done. There's little else that feels better'n having a drawing "complete"!

oh nice.... be a shame if the Beasties ghost was still hanging around....

Elf: Why can't we ever go anywhere NICE??

Dwarf+Human: SHUT UP!