Why Understanding Values is Essential to Your Art | How to Paint Digitally

What Are Values?

A value is defined by how light or dark a color is. If you'd like to know how to paint digitally well, understanding what values is very very important!

In the photo below, the green dots are in areas of lighter value and the purple dots are in areas of darker value. (Additionally, saturation is your X & value is your Y.)

The Three Most Important Values

"Having only three values to choose from is like a life preserver that keeps your head above water instead of drawing in in sea of 100s of possible values." -Marco Bucci

In Marco Bucci's video, "Light and Shadow", he demystifies what the most important three values are.

Average Light

Found on surfaces lit by your light source.

Average Shadow

There are only two types of shadows. Use one value to represent them.

• Cast Shadows - Shadow (literally) casted by an object because the object is blocking light from getting to that area.

• Form Shadows - Areas with form shadow are planes on an object that are turned away from the light source.

Half Tone/Mid Tone

A value in between the shadow and light value. Some choose a half tone directly in between the shadow and light value. Marco Bucci prefers to use Sargent's method & keep the half tone closer to the light value.

How to do Value Studies

Here is an example study I did using the method Marco Bucci shared in his video, "Light and Shadow"!

1. Select a reference

Model - @laurenjdg

2. Paint the overall shape of the subject with the average light value. Then place down the average shadow value (cast & form shadows).

Tip - Paint clean, easy to read shapes.

3. Incorporate the half tone

Use a value closer to your average light value than your average shadow value.

4. Blend

This could be covered in a separate post all together but TLDR: Use a mix of the smudge tool, airbrush, & textured brushes—moderately to avoid a messy result.

• Airbrush: Where I wanted a completely soft look (i.e. first image, right cheek).

• Smudge Tool: Used this for areas where I wanted a some-what soft blend but not as soft as the airbrush would make it (i.e. left cheek).

• Blending with Brushes: Use one value to blend into the other value. Then vice versa! Repeat until desired look is achieved (i.e. neck area).

Extra: Blending with Brushes Demo

1. First image: Composed of simple shapes, no blending at all.

2. Top right: Painted some strokes towards the lighter area using the dark value.

3. Bottom left: Used the same textured brush but this time, I used the lighter grey value to blend/paint back into the darker area.

4. Bottom right: Repeated steps 2 & 3 until I got the desired outcome.

5. The Final Image

After blending, all I did for details was add hair strands, freckles, & tiny brushstrokes in the eye/lips!

Thanks For Reading

Let me know if this was helpful & what you'd like me to cover next in the comments below! See you again next month! 😊🤎