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hey all welcome back to my channel
today's tutorial is all about
values and we will see what is value in
art and how it works
why it is really important to master
value before color
how color can trick you and mess up with
your values
the importance of local value and then
at the end
i'll show you my complete process so be
sure to stick around
and if you want to see more tutorials
like this you can let me know by
smashing the like button
now let's get into it so the first
question to answer is
what actually is value the answer is
very simple value is the amount of light
and shadow
present on a certain surface and it's
usually represented in greyscale
this is the azaro head which is a great
example for explaining
what value is because this is a model of
the human head
meant to show the planes of the head and
so we can see
clearly how the light interacts with
these planes for example if i have a
light source slightly above on the right
we can see that the upper planes are
slightly lighter because they are
directly hit by the light and so here we
have
a lighter value while on the ones in
shadow we are gonna have
uh darker values and the head is all
made with the same material
so there's no difference in this case
and in fact we will have
value that goes towards white on the
upper planes
and we can have slightly darker values
on the planes that are not facing the
light so the ones in shadow
the azaro head is a great example and
you can find this model
on sketchfab and i'll include a link in
the description
so the tldr for this is everything we
can see is light
and it's thanked to values all we have
to do to find the values of an image is
to turn it grayscale basically
like with this picture and because
grayscales remove the colors
we can have an objective view of the
values
that we are seeing so how the light
interacts with each material
how the light interacts with each
surface
using values and grayscales is a great
method for
focusing on light behavior only i
usually use this technique for
thumbnailing
and for sketching and for when i want to
focus on idea
and composition for a painting when i
don't want to add color in the equation
in order to keep things simple and not
over complicated
like in these examples these are
thumbnails that i usually do to prepare
for a painting
and as you can see here i only focus on
composition and
light behavior pretty much now as you
can see
value is really important but why is it
so important and why is important to
master value
before color well the reason is simple
nice colors would never save bad values
because value is the foundation of the
image here we have a couple of examples
this is a painting that i made in late
2007
while the mermaid on the right is a
painting i did this year and the
difference
in values is incredible as soon as i
turn them grayscale
you can notice that in the image on the
left the values are
all over the place while in the image on
the right on the mermaid
you can see that i clearly have an area
of focus and
all the contrast and the focus goes on
the mermaid in the right places while
the background is just
pretty much flat values and by result
the image
on the right is much more readable than
the image on the left
now let me explain how value and color
works in an image
you can clearly see in this red sphere
that i have
both color and value but as soon as i
separate them
and i keep the value on the left and the
color on the right
it's really evident that what remains in
value
is the whole 3d shape of the sphere
while
the color element gives me back just a
2d image
this is the difference in readability
between value and color
we can see color as the cherry on top of
our composition
this doesn't mean that color is not
important but it means that
all the readability of the masses that
it's
compressible to the human brain it's
basically only values
so this is why mastering values is
really important and it's fundamental to
learn before we go on with colors
another reason why is often helpful to
establish
values before color is because color can
really trick you
let me explain why if i pick a series of
colors
and i pick them all at equal saturation
then i fill a layer with black
using the blending mode color i can turn
them grayscale
you can see that they all translate to
different shades of gray
and this is always true yellow and the
full point of saturation of yellow is
going to
always be lighter than the full point of
saturation of blue
for example so you can imagine that if
you are
painting directly with colors instead of
going through value first
you can very easily lose track of
what your values are sometimes
a difference in colors can give us a
full sense of contrast
let me explain if we look at this
mermaid and we see her for colors
we can see there's clearly a contrast
between the t and the tail
because they are two complementary
colors close to each other but if we
turn it grayscale we can see that
actually the t value and the tail value
are pretty much
the same if we were to do things
correctly either the tail
or the t should have a different value
in order to contrast the image more
and drive more attention towards the
subject
now i'm not saying you should start
every painting with values first
because i don't do that either but
sometimes if you want to concentrate on
composition first
and on light behavior it can be pretty
useful
and it can end up simplifying your
process
now to explain this point i'm going to
show you two examples
one where i start with values and the
other one where i start with colors
now when i start with values i can focus
on composition and light
only and make sure these aspects are
working first
i can remove the problem of the colors
and think about it later
this lets me focus on important stuff at
the beginning and adjust some
superficial things
later with the colors this is a much
simpler process and allows me to focus
on the important stuff first at the end
the colors are just the cherry on top
and i can just noodle with the details
later
when i start with colors instead my
priorities
shift a little bit i worry about the
palette first
and i put the flat colors down then i
worry about the values and shading
properly and i adjust everything
as i go forward with the painting this
means constantly checking that
everything works together
and it can be really complicated because
there are many things to keep in check
all at once so while i worry about the
color combinations and the palette
i also worry about shading properly
light behavior
and composition now if you don't know it
a good
trick for keeping your values in check
when you are painting directly with
colors
is this one you can make a new layer on
the very top
fill it with black and then you can use
the blending mode
color to turn everything into a
grayscale composition
you can toggle this layer on and off so
you can keep painting in colors but you
can
constantly check the accuracy of your
values
and adjust everything as you go now you
can see that proceeding with colors
directly
can be more powerful but you should also
have a good understanding of values
and it can make the process a little bit
complicated especially
if you're a beginner for most
complicated paintings if i really wanted
to focus on composition first
i do start with values instead of colors
now at the beginning of the video we saw
how light impacts our values so we can
obtain
correct values if we start with a
certain value and then we apply light
or shadow so we shade our object but
what happens in a situation of ambient
light
will all our object have the same
starting value well the answer is
no because our materials and our
surfaces
can be different the local values can be
different a common beginner mistake when
painting in values is not considering
local value
and paint every object starting with the
same local value and it looks like a 3d
model without textures
so what happens is that you obtain a
model made of the same materials with
just
ambient occlusion on it if you don't
know what amino occlusion is check out
this other video where i talk about
ambient occlusion and a bunch of other
stuff now you can see the difference
between these two models one has the
correct local values
and the other one as the same local
values for everything and you can
clearly see which one of the two looks
correct
now even if you understand the
importance of local values starting
painting with values can be really
overwhelming
this is because the human eye can see
billions of values
and it's really not realistic that we
could use such amount
or such range as artists to represent
reality so in time
artists came up with a way to simplify
values
and use it in a scale from 0 to 10 where
we can go from complete white to
pure black this can simplify the process
pretty much and it can make it more
familiar
and easy to use i don't usually
recommend to use
all 10 values for a painting because
depending on the mood and the subject
that you want to represent
it's often better to use just a small
range of this
for example if it's a particularly dark
scene you can use
a couple of values towards black and
mostly
and just one that goes in the upper
middle range
it's better to use a subset of those
based on the mood and the atmosphere
that we want to convey
usually as an exercise i recommend
watching movies
and take some still frames from some
movies that
you want to represent that have a mood
that you like and
try to re-represent this with just three
or four
different values i do this as an
exercise sometimes to
get in the habit of using values and to
get used to it and
make them become my comfort zone so that
even when i work with colors
i can spot if some values are
probably not working properly and if
there's no contrast
in the area towards the subject that i
want to like
highlight to the viewer so personally i
really recommend to use this as a
frequent exercise to understand values
now let me show you my process of
working with values
from scratch this is a composition i
came up with on the fly
i start with pretty much three or four
range of values
and my idea is to use the darkest value
for elements that are close to the
camera and the farther i go
from the camera the lighter the value is
this is because basically
when you're looking at a landscape or
some very open space
you can clearly see that the further you
go the more
atmosphere there is between your eyes
and the object that you're looking at so
for this reason the values
are flattening up if you think about for
example some landscape that you've seen
with mountains
uh in the background it's very likely
that
the subjects that you see and the
objects that you see that are close to
the camera
will have a lot of contrast because
there's little or no air
between you and those objects while the
mountains
further away will be usually towards
blue or depending on the weather but
usually with like very light or flat
values
so this is why i often start with three
or four values
and i use the darkest one for the
closest elements
as i go forward i try to define the
silhouettes
of each layer i keep as much as i can on
separate layer
based on the silhouette but i try not to
have everything on
separate layers because otherwise i
would go crazy in no time
i also tried to give some indication of
light basically and
try to understand what planes are in
shadow so for example
in the atari on the top i can clearly
see that there are some parts of the
tory that are in shadow
while some other parts are in light and
usually the sky
is actually the lightest part of all
another way to use the difference in
values is
to try to point the eyes of the viewers
towards your subject so at some point
during this process i decided that
my subject at the top of the mountain
was not visible enough probably the tory
uh the gate on the top could benefit to
be darker
and if you observe the character i also
use the value of the sky
and the light that generates from its
stuff to create more contrast and this
way
will catch the audio of the viewer more
and will be more
visible compared to the rest of the
painting where the values are a little
bit flatter
another thing that working with values
allows me to do
is to really concentrate on the
composition and in this case
there are several elements that guides
me towards my character
and these are the stairs that dries my
eyes
upwards the swirling clouds that
directly point me
at the character the gate that frames
the character
and the contrast on the character itself
so this is something to keep an eye on
when you're working in values everything
else
is just adding details to my image
and i try to reach a point where i have
some indication of light
but i try to keep everything in a sort
of ambient light
and this is because when i want to add a
more specific lighting
i will do that with color and if you're
curious about that you can watch the
sequel of this video where i show
how to add color to your grayscale
composition so if you're curious about
that
i really recommend to check that out and
this is all for now so if you're still
here comment below by suggesting the
next topic you want me to cover
and i'll do my best to make it possible
as you all know i'm always trying to
improve and i do so by studying and
watching the content of other great
artists
i recently tried with a course on a new
platform called winkbox
wingbox is a platform where a lot of
great artists share their knowledge with
tutorials and classes
i just finished a course on stylized
background for animation and 3d
projection and i learned so much
if you want to learn on a new platform
you can do so by clicking the link in
the description
and with it you will support my channel
as well another thing i want to mention
is that some of you may know that i
provide individual online classes
about digital painting and if you are
interested in my courses feel free to
follow me and reach out on my instagram
page
thank you all for watching and as always
i hope this tutorial was useful and this
is all for today and i'll see you next
time
