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.

“Every object has their own value to start with”.

I've never really heard anyone address this problem in such a simple way before. Great video!

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

I totally didn't notice what was wrong until you said it in the video, and then it was super obvious.

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.

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!

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.

Funny how such a simple thing can pass so many people (myself included). 2 years of drawing class and this was never brought up.

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!

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?

you changed my values, idk if that joke was made but this REALLY helped ty so much!

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)

Oh the water stage on dk. such a nostalgic music !

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.

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

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

this is the best tutorial that i've seen so far in this topic. Thanks

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!!!

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

The value struggle is too real :D , great tutorial !

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 :))

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 video but found the music distracting :)

Sorry I lost you when I heard Donkey Kong. :-P

9/14/29 USA Grandpa Bill: This is the best voice sound system I've heard on KZfaq. 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.

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!

This is a really old video,but the use of ICO music im the intro is amazing

Thank you for this :) I'm a student too and this will definitely help my greyscale projects pop

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

This really explains what I don’t understand about value. Thank you.

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.

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!!

thanks for this! this is something i try to keep in mind but it's hard to do in practice

Donkey Kong Country 2 - Stickerbush Symphony

Should you have one layer for materiel value and another layer for overall shadow and light?

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

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).

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

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.

Still relevant! Glad I found this. Thank you, Tyler Edlin, for this informative and easy to digest video!

*Stickerbush Symphony* Good taste Tyler.

LOL DK on the background HAHA! Freaking Bramble Blast! Good taste and great art! ^^

got super nostalgic when i heard the dk music!! love it! im amazed i recognized it haha

5:20 That nostalgia really helped me focus bro.

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

I'm looking at the picture being criticized and don't see the problem when related to the 3 values of the cube.

would be nice to see the still life fixed, because really hard to imagine the difference you can bring, but anyway big thanks

it's likestarting my newclasses beforehand- I'm so happy , i hope the career is as well explained

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.

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.

basically dont forget that some materials are darker than others when trying to paint value

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

This is absolutely awesome. Forwarding this to my newcomers.

Every one and their mom lately been using the thorn stage bgm in dkc2

Thank you. Very helpful Mr. Edlin

Interesting video. Also your intro sequence is really awesome! I rewinded it like 9 times, just to see it again and again ^^

Wow! Thànk you so much for such fun and informative video!! I can't believe such knowledge is here on KZfaq 🔥🔥🔥

Thanks for this man, super useful and a nice reminder.

Great explanation, a must see video, thanks!

Based Stickerbush Symphony in the background

Thank you! This will help me tremendously in my art! 😍

Very helpful tips! Thanks a bunch for the video!

Stickerbrush Symphony is a great song. DKC2 FTW!

I am so proud to say one of my deficient works was used in this video! I feel famous! :'D

5:19 - a David Wise's song called "Stickerbrush Symphony", from Bramble Blast level, in Donkey Kong Country 2 SNES game, starts to play! 😍

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.

very helpful! thank you!!

donkey kong music, my dad loves playing those water stages music all the time lol

Thank you!

this is super helpful,thank you so much!

Nice, i'll try to keep this in mind for the future

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.

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 ) ;)

so you are talking about blending more shades on a surface instead of having one shade for each surface/face?

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.

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?

Are you trying to make me cry with this background music? :'[

the problem with the values is most of them are nearly the same values,there is no foreground that uses blacks and whites all the way,there is no mid that uses greys to whites and their is no back that uses light greys to whites.every material needs it own specific value

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?

Holy molly dude! You're awesome! Thank you so much omg

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 😞

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?

Yup if I never watched this I would still be making that mistake. Thank you so much

Ur video was extremely extremely helpful cant thank u enough but ill say it anyway.ty

I never knew people made that mistake, but I'll keep an eye out just to be sure.

LOVE this DK2 track.

So basically Paint with values then ad shadow?

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!

Great lesson! KZfaq, give this man more subs!!!

Why whenever I watch videos it gets more complicated for me rather than solve my problem ughhh im si dumb i hate myselffff

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?

Tyler you are fantastic thank you for your art and for you mentorship and I will like to be one of your students

Starting out with form studies always solves this issue. Do not even draw until you can get your form studies right. :)

Very helpful, thanks for the video .

threw me off when the donkeykong country 2 music started playing....thats my shitt lol

Extremely helpful, thank you!

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...