These tutorials always show up in my recommendations out of nowhere, and they somehow always turn out to be just that one thing that my art lacked completely. It's a miracle.
If you want a very indepth and specific solution to this problem I recommend looking for Bill perkins course videos online, eh explains how to key your hue, saturation and value so they dont get all mixed up.
I started painting just over 1 year ago at age 63. (No art training what so ever). I am struggling with the concept of value. I did not comprehend this video but I watched it to the end. I think an art student would understand better than myself. I am guessing that the problem with the three beautiful sketches is that they did not have enough contrast in the shading of the drawing in order to help depict the different materials in the drawing?
hello there! :) I'm not sure if you still need help, but I'll try to explain from what I understood :) he explained that the flat pictures had the same value, the same color for every material that should have different colors and textures. for example, the picture with the apple and jar and the cup, the midtone for the apple should be different than the jar's, so the shadow and light would also be different with the jar. with the houses, the doors should have a different value than the walls, the roof should have a different value than the walls and door! every material should have a different value, and, consequently, the shade and light values should also be different! take this with a pinch of salt, since it's what I understood but I may be wrong! ☺️
Ok, this is a game changing thing, i have been wondering for many months and trying to understand how it works "local value" is the answer. Great video with really great explanation!
omg dude this is exactly where i was stuck in my paintings. Thank you for what you do. Helping people on their path. You just reseased me from my suffering haha
Thank you for spending your time to create this video! Very professional, I sort of knew about this but it's very hard to nail it down while having to control all the other variables, hue, light edges, shapes, it can get a little overwhelming if you're trying to master it all. Thanks once again!
Tip for artists here: It is simply once you get it. The main thing you should always keep in mind is High contrast moves forward in space and low contrast moves backward. There is of course more than just that like Dark objects move forward and Light objects move backward. It is important to increase the value range of each object as well. Try and stay away from flat value ranges. Once you can Maximize your value structure, you can prune it back to you style of painting.
you worded this really strangely, what I think you meant to say was things become more de-saturated as they move back in space, which is only particularly important when it comes to landscape scenes or when you want to separate your foreground, middle ground and background. the reason they become more or less saturated is simply because of the atmosphere, this can vary depending on the weather ie fog, smoke, clear day. not really relevant to this video because we where only talking about value and not Hue and Saturation... you might have been confusing this contrast with he fact that things that are not in the focal point are not meant to have much contrast in paintings because you don't want the focus to be your background... or maybe you do? thats all down to how you plan your painting.
Value is much more about getting the lighting right than about specific colors. Obviously, colors matter a lot. But with the incorrect notion of how lighting, atmosphere, “mood” and texture work, it can turn out a mess. Anyway, great video. Subject that goes unnoticed most of the times by many artists.
I didnt realize until the first example house with good values, but I'd like to think I do this really well! Things like this help me be proud of my art!! Thank you very much for this video!!!
That's a fantastic was to explain it, reckon this should be one of the FIRST things we are taught when doing still life drawing (it tends to be one of the first things we learn in art at school over here in the UK)
men you just blowed my mind, i've just realised that i never understood actually what is values. thanks for the tips and the amazing video, you really helped me :))
i guess the lower painting is to be colored afterwards which is then done with lighter and darker colors which bring the different values .. its basically like the lighting and ambient occlusion pass from a 3d render
9/14/29 USA Grandpa Bill: This is the best voice sound system I've heard on RUclips. In my headphones, your voice is clear and strong. This is good. I appreciate the value comparisons. I can use my copier to make a copy of the colors in test, to see how they line up in value. This has proved helpful. Also, studying the old black and white movies: years ago (I'm 71 now) I could tell what colors there were from the shades of gray. It came with experience. I seem to have forgotten a lot, and now I can see that some colors could be misinterpreted as the result of value. Also, pencil sketches are worth the effort in determining value since the foregrounds must be darker and then within the drawing different elements have to be strengthened in tone to stand out. Thank you for this video and your effort.
Luminosity Layer is very helpful in this matter! So you paint everything with a flat default value, then in a new layer you can paint with luminosity and on top of that add shadows and highlights :). Great video!
I'm confused about what exactly you're suggesting because the comment wasn't specific enough. I'm aware of Luminosity maps made by placing a new layer at the top of an image that's filled with black or 50% Grey, and then changing the blending mode to color in order to effectively judge the values. Is that the same process you were describing?
I wonder about what blending mode I should use on the grayscale layer, and on color layer. And where should I put them, is it the color layer above the grayscale layer or vice versa? Thank you for the video.
how about "grouping your values" and "keeping values minimal 3-5 tonal values". I personally think that the mistake especially in the center bottom image is that the foreground house's value is as the same as the house behind it (midground).
Now I have to go back to my work in progress drawing and check the values. I'm sure the values are pretty similar. I needed this video. No wonder my colors look dull and flat. Value!!
something that would have helped is lassoing the still life and messing with the brightness and contrast for each of the items to show what it would look like with them having drastically different starting value
I believe you're just assuming they're trying to achieve a finished black and white image however the reason why a lot of artists prefer to paint black and white images without base colour value is because they prefer to paint in photoshop using gradient maps. This helps the artist to more accurately render the occlusion before moving on to light, cast shadows and colour.
I can't explain how good you teach and how amazing your advice are, it's just priceless. Dude cmon you are helping so much people, you pedagogy is nice, explaining by comparaison and using simple but precise words
I'm having a hard time understanding these Art Fundamentals but yeah.. what else can I do except practice? I just hope I have someone who can teach me personally. Anyways, 'Every object has their own value to start with.' I'll keep that in mind. Thanks
really helpful. Your explanation is easy to understand. Now, I understand value much better. Excited to try it out and observe it on my works. THanks a lot
7:30 But what if the apple is lighter in color? You can not just make it red when it is a light green. So there is no right or wrong nor is there a "problem". All just optional. Art has no guideline.
I’m still really not getting this at all. There were loads of different shades of grey in those first buildings?? I am trying to find some exercises to do myself to learn value but I haven’t found any. I learn by doing. I am feeling really stupid I’m just not getting it 😞
The buildings were all “shaded” in regards to light. But that didn’t factor in how light or dark the material of an object were. Which would add another level of depth and accuracy to the drawings
My problem is that within an object/subject, I'll give each material its own value range, but then I have trouble making it stand out from the background elements, because the subject itself has so much contrast and so many different values that it merges into the background values. Generally, I try to keep subject, background, foreground, etc. in their own general value ranges but sometimes it's hard to have them not share similar values. How could I avoid this?
Manas you don’t need to study value if you understand it. You can have value on its on and it works but value is always a part of color and still more important structurally. I recommend trying some paintings in color, if it doesn’t work out try some without
How do you decide what value what material is? like i dont get how people draw in grayscale and then color... i tried it before and in my case the color just wouldnt look like its suppose to because the value of my grayscale layer was either too bright or too dark... how do ik what should be what... like it cant be just a guessing game right?
I mostly just compare two objects to each other and say what is lighter or darker. A banana is lighter than an apple. Clouds are mostly lighter than a blue sky, iron is darker than wood. Most things are fairly mid toned though so it comes down to getting the color right
I understood what the problem was and how to fix it but I still can't tell how you would fix it in the examples you provided. I can tell they're wrong but they also do have a difference in values.
Hey! Stickerbush Symphony from Donkey Kong Country 2 at 5:19 I think it has nothing to do with this vid, however it was a good move to remember that old amazing game! XD Thanks for that!
Yea but you have to learn to work with one local value before working with multiple. If they're only using one then that's probably where they are in the learning process.
Great tips as always,,,, But it's kind of hard not to close the video once the music starts... It's way too loud and it does not connect with the video, if that makes sense...
Feels like a catch 22 solution. If students can know what value a color has in black and white then there is no point doing a black and white in the first place. That would be like reverse engineering values from a colored piece without knowing what the colored piece looks like.
@05:20 is that a song from "Donkey Kong"? :D btw what a great video, thank you Tyler! Update: just saw ALOT other comments confirmed that donkey kong thing :D
I think I understand. Each material has a different base value, so they don't start out with the same gray. But how are you supposed to figure out the base value if the light and shadows are affecting the object. I'm still a little confused
it has to be made through observation first. simply by asking if the object itself is dark, medium, or light. if theres light or shadow on it you would need to adjust from there.
Finally caught on after just 4 minutes, they don't account for materials and colors properly. I would definitely make this mistake if I wasn't aware of it as I am now, I've underestimate the importance of this.
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
These tutorials always show up in my recommendations out of nowhere, and they somehow always turn out to be just that one thing that my art lacked completely. It's a miracle.
You can thank the FBI
Amazon
“Every object has their own value to start with”.
Fr, needed someone to tell me this.
I've never really heard anyone address this problem in such a simple way before. Great video!
Lillendandie Art thanks happy to hear it.
If you want a very indepth and specific solution to this problem I recommend looking for Bill perkins course videos online, eh explains how to key your hue, saturation and value so they dont get all mixed up.
I started painting just over 1 year ago at age 63. (No art training what so ever). I am struggling with the concept of value. I did not comprehend this video but I watched it to the end. I think an art student would understand better than myself. I am guessing that the problem with the three beautiful sketches is that they did not have enough contrast in the shading of the drawing in order to help depict the different materials in the drawing?
hello there! :) I'm not sure if you still need help, but I'll try to explain from what I understood :) he explained that the flat pictures had the same value, the same color for every material that should have different colors and textures. for example, the picture with the apple and jar and the cup, the midtone for the apple should be different than the jar's, so the shadow and light would also be different with the jar. with the houses, the doors should have a different value than the walls, the roof should have a different value than the walls and door! every material should have a different value, and, consequently, the shade and light values should also be different! take this with a pinch of salt, since it's what I understood but I may be wrong! ☺️
you changed my values, idk if that joke was made but this REALLY helped ty so much!
Understanding this is soo important IMO, yet I rarely ever hear anyone talk about it. Thanks!
Ok, this is a game changing thing, i have been wondering for many months and trying to understand how it works "local value" is the answer. Great video with really great explanation!
omg dude this is exactly where i was stuck in my paintings. Thank you for what you do. Helping people on their path. You just reseased me from my suffering haha
Johny Kato happy to hear it dude !
Thank you for spending your time to create this video! Very professional, I sort of knew about this but it's very hard to nail it down while having to control all the other variables, hue, light edges, shapes, it can get a little overwhelming if you're trying to master it all. Thanks once again!
Oh the water stage on dk. such a nostalgic music !
Tip for artists here: It is simply once you get it. The main thing you should always keep in mind is High contrast moves forward in space and low contrast moves backward. There is of course more than just that like Dark objects move forward and Light objects move backward. It is important to increase the value range of each object as well. Try and stay away from flat value ranges. Once you can Maximize your value structure, you can prune it back to you style of painting.
you worded this really strangely, what I think you meant to say was things become more de-saturated as they move back in space, which is only particularly important when it comes to landscape scenes or when you want to separate your foreground, middle ground and background. the reason they become more or less saturated is simply because of the atmosphere, this can vary depending on the weather ie fog, smoke, clear day.
not really relevant to this video because we where only talking about value and not Hue and Saturation... you might have been confusing this contrast with he fact that things that are not in the focal point are not meant to have much contrast in paintings because you don't want the focus to be your background... or maybe you do? thats all down to how you plan your painting.
Corey Wood He’s also saying that the value contrast of an object’s illuminated side and its form shadow decreases as it moves further away
I totally didn't notice what was wrong until you said it in the video, and then it was super obvious.
Exactly! Looking at them again, I can't believe I missed it.
Value is much more about getting the lighting right than about specific colors. Obviously, colors matter a lot. But with the incorrect notion of how lighting, atmosphere, “mood” and texture work, it can turn out a mess. Anyway, great video. Subject that goes unnoticed most of the times by many artists.
I'm one of your silent long time followers Tyler, you really help give back to the art community with these helpful videos man thanks
McDread thanks for the comment happy to hear it
New info “Every object has their own value to start with”. Let's see what improvements I can make with this.
Big thx for the video
I didnt realize until the first example house with good values, but I'd like to think I do this really well! Things like this help me be proud of my art!! Thank you very much for this video!!!
That's a fantastic was to explain it, reckon this should be one of the FIRST things we are taught when doing still life drawing (it tends to be one of the first things we learn in art at school over here in the UK)
men you just blowed my mind, i've just realised that i never understood actually what is values. thanks for the tips and the amazing video, you really helped me :))
i guess the lower painting is to be colored afterwards which is then done with lighter and darker colors which bring the different values .. its basically like the lighting and ambient occlusion pass from a 3d render
9/14/29 USA Grandpa Bill: This is the best voice sound system I've heard on RUclips. In my headphones, your voice is clear and strong. This is good. I appreciate the value comparisons. I can use my copier to make a copy of the colors in test, to see how they line up in value. This has proved helpful. Also, studying the old black and white movies: years ago (I'm 71 now) I could tell what colors there were from the shades of gray. It came with experience. I seem to have forgotten a lot, and now I can see that some colors could be misinterpreted as the result of value. Also, pencil sketches are worth the effort in determining value since the foregrounds must be darker and then within the drawing different elements have to be strengthened in tone to stand out. Thank you for this video and your effort.
Luminosity Layer is very helpful in this matter! So you paint everything with a flat default value, then in a new layer you can paint with luminosity and on top of that add shadows and highlights :). Great video!
great tip!
I'm confused about what exactly you're suggesting because the comment wasn't specific enough. I'm aware of Luminosity maps made by placing a new layer at the top of an image that's filled with black or 50% Grey, and then changing the blending mode to color in order to effectively judge the values. Is that the same process you were describing?
Should you have one layer for materiel value and another layer for overall shadow and light?
this is the best tutorial that i've seen so far in this topic. Thanks
A picture is worth 1000 words. Would be helpful to see the still life with the changes made. I didn’t get much out of this except the idea.
Funny how such a simple thing can pass so many people (myself included). 2 years of drawing class and this was never brought up.
5:19 - a David Wise's song called "Stickerbrush Symphony", from Bramble Blast level, in Donkey Kong Country 2 SNES game, starts to play! 😍
Ahh this tip felt like you reached into my brain and turned on a light switch that was stuck. Thank you so much!! Greatly appreciate this!
I wonder about what blending mode I should use on the grayscale layer, and on color layer. And where should I put them, is it the color layer above the grayscale layer or vice versa?
Thank you for the video.
how about "grouping your values" and "keeping values minimal 3-5 tonal values". I personally think that the mistake especially in the center bottom image is that the foreground house's value is as the same as the house behind it (midground).
3:30 I come from Blender first and you are totally right I currently paint everything like a Viewport Display💀
Now I have to go back to my work in progress drawing and check the values. I'm sure the values are pretty similar. I needed this video. No wonder my colors look dull and flat. Value!!
This really explains what I don’t understand about value. Thank you.
thanks for this! this is something i try to keep in mind but it's hard to do in practice
something that would have helped is lassoing the still life and messing with the brightness and contrast for each of the items to show what it would look like with them having drastically different starting value
The value struggle is too real :D , great tutorial !
Everything about this lesson is well overdue
I believe you're just assuming they're trying to achieve a finished black and white image however the reason why a lot of artists prefer to paint black and white images without base colour value is because they prefer to paint in photoshop using gradient maps. This helps the artist to more accurately render the occlusion before moving on to light, cast shadows and colour.
I'm looking at the picture being criticized and don't see the problem when related to the 3 values of the cube.
Thank you for this :) I'm a student too and this will definitely help my greyscale projects pop
I can't explain how good you teach and how amazing your advice are, it's just priceless. Dude cmon you are helping so much people, you pedagogy is nice, explaining by comparaison and using simple but precise words
YORU TSUUYU thank you very much I appreciate your kind words
also your voice is really relaxing and cute haha love it
Still relevant! Glad I found this. Thank you, Tyler Edlin, for this informative and easy to digest video!
This is a really old video,but the use of ICO music im the intro is amazing
I'm having a hard time understanding these Art Fundamentals but yeah.. what else can I do except practice? I just hope I have someone who can teach me personally. Anyways, 'Every object has their own value to start with.' I'll keep that in mind. Thanks
really helpful. Your explanation is easy to understand. Now, I understand value much better. Excited to try it out and observe it on my works. THanks a lot
it's likestarting my newclasses beforehand- I'm so happy , i hope the career is as well explained
Donkey Kong Country 2 - Stickerbush Symphony
7:30 But what if the apple is lighter in color? You can not just make it red when it is a light green. So there is no right or wrong nor is there a "problem". All just optional. Art has no guideline.
I completely disagree. and thats okay, we dont have to agree.
"The more intense the light, the more intense the shadow will be."
Great video but found the music distracting :)
would be nice to see the still life fixed, because really hard to imagine the difference you can bring, but anyway big thanks
Okay yeah this was really cool, I've been making the same mistake and didn't realise it till you pointed it out thanks a bunch
I’m still really not getting this at all. There were loads of different shades of grey in those first buildings?? I am trying to find some exercises to do myself to learn value but I haven’t found any. I learn by doing. I am feeling really stupid I’m just not getting it 😞
The buildings were all “shaded” in regards to light. But that didn’t factor in how light or dark the material of an object were. Which would add another level of depth and accuracy to the drawings
OK thank! I appreciate it! I'm going to rewatch.
so you are talking about blending more shades on a surface instead of having one shade for each surface/face?
got super nostalgic when i heard the dk music!! love it! im amazed i recognized it haha
Every one and their mom lately been using the thorn stage bgm in dkc2
I did it 3 years ago
@@TylerEdlin84 and they still at it . I guess you started something.
My problem is that within an object/subject, I'll give each material its own value range, but then I have trouble making it stand out from the background elements, because the subject itself has so much contrast and so many different values that it merges into the background values. Generally, I try to keep subject, background, foreground, etc. in their own general value ranges but sometimes it's hard to have them not share similar values. How could I avoid this?
I understood what you were saying but I don’t feel as if it made the concept any clearer to me in practice. Maybe it’s more intuitive?
But how can i know the right value to assign to every element on a scene, or part of an element 😵? I can't go by trial and error, can i?
So basically
Paint with values then ad shadow?
Sorry I lost you when I heard Donkey Kong. :-P
happens to me all the time
Tyler Edlin As much as I like the music it was very annoying when trying to listen to you voice. I'd prefer it without music.
yeah i agree i could have handled it better
LOL DK on the background HAHA! Freaking Bramble Blast! Good taste and great art! ^^
This is absolutely awesome. Forwarding this to my newcomers.
How necessary is value studying? Does this matter when you're going straight for the color?
Manas you don’t need to study value if you understand it. You can have value on its on and it works but value is always a part of color and still more important structurally. I recommend trying some paintings in color, if it doesn’t work out try some without
Thank you. Very helpful Mr. Edlin
4:16... I know that background sound. The author was using Cintiq Pro 😅
How do you decide what value what material is? like i dont get how people draw in grayscale and then color... i tried it before and in my case the color just wouldnt look like its suppose to because the value of my grayscale layer was either too bright or too dark... how do ik what should be what... like it cant be just a guessing game right?
I mostly just compare two objects to each other and say what is lighter or darker. A banana is lighter than an apple. Clouds are mostly lighter than a blue sky, iron is darker than wood. Most things are fairly mid toned though so it comes down to getting the color right
I understood what the problem was and how to fix it but I still can't tell how you would fix it in the examples you provided. I can tell they're wrong but they also do have a difference in values.
Hey!
Stickerbush Symphony from Donkey Kong Country 2 at 5:19 I think it has nothing to do with this vid, however it was a good move to remember that old amazing game! XD Thanks for that!
Yea but you have to learn to work with one local value before working with multiple. If they're only using one then that's probably where they are in the learning process.
Great tips as always,,,, But it's kind of hard not to close the video once the music starts... It's way too loud and it does not connect with the video, if that makes sense...
Ricardo Carnauba that’s what I have gathered, so I don’t do sound tracks anymore
Wow! Thànk you so much for such fun and informative video!! I can't believe such knowledge is here on RUclips 🔥🔥🔥
*Stickerbush Symphony*
Good taste Tyler.
ikr
Feels like a catch 22 solution. If students can know what value a color has in black and white then there is no point doing a black and white in the first place. That would be like reverse engineering values from a colored piece without knowing what the colored piece looks like.
Thanks for doing this i am gonna particiüate in an art contest and i started planning things out and started thumbnailing...
Interesting video.
Also your intro sequence is really awesome! I rewinded it like 9 times, just to see it again and again ^^
@05:20 is that a song from "Donkey Kong"? :D btw what a great video, thank you Tyler!
Update: just saw ALOT other comments confirmed that donkey kong thing :D
I think I understand. Each material has a different base value, so they don't start out with the same gray. But how are you supposed to figure out the base value if the light and shadows are affecting the object. I'm still a little confused
it has to be made through observation first. simply by asking if the object itself is dark, medium, or light. if theres light or shadow on it you would need to adjust from there.
Tyler Edlin okay, I'll try that. Thanks for answering even though I was this late to the video
Thanks for this man, super useful and a nice reminder.
Very helpful tips! Thanks a bunch for the video!
this is super helpful,thank you so much!
Nice, i'll try to keep this in mind for the future
Great explanation, a must see video, thanks!
LOVE this DK2 track.
I can sketch but when i colour it's just plain colour I don't know how to add realistic look to it 😭
Awesome tip, I def have done this plenty of times before. DKC2 Stickerbrush music I never get over that track ;D (Bramble Blast is the level ) ;)
Why whenever I watch videos it gets more complicated for me rather than solve my problem ughhh im si dumb i hate myselffff
Thank you!
donkey kong music, my dad loves playing those water stages music all the time lol
Thank you! This will help me tremendously in my art! 😍
Finally caught on after just 4 minutes, they don't account for materials and colors properly. I would definitely make this mistake if I wasn't aware of it as I am now, I've underestimate the importance of this.
I never knew people made that mistake, but I'll keep an eye out just to be sure.
I am so proud to say one of my deficient works was used in this video! I feel famous! :'D
its helping so many people now!
very helpful! thank you!!
What music did you use?
basically dont forget that some materials are darker than others when trying to paint value
threw me off when the donkeykong country 2 music started playing....thats my shitt lol
At the very beginning, is that 'Continue' off the game soundtrack of Ico by any chance?
Woahhh thank you so much for the video, now i know why my drawings look kinda flat!
Hit me harder with that sticker brush symphone bro 5:20
Tyler you are fantastic thank you for your art and for you mentorship and I will like to be one of your students