The Power of Value Groups

One of the most powerful concepts I ever learned as a painter was that of grouping values. It stems from that shading conundrum we all face: “how do you know which tone to use?” If you consider that your typical digital color-picker has 256 levels of gray (from white to black), that’s 255 possible wrong choices at any juncture. And boy is that ever daunting to think about.

Thankfully, we don’t have to think about it that way. Instead, consider the idea that you can take close-together tones/values in the grayscale - say, 4-5 values that differ ever so slightly, and group them so they effectively become one value - united in their application.

What I mean by ‘united in their application’ is that you use various value groups to communicate different aspects of light. One value group may be used to show the average light on an object - that is, areas of the form where the light source more or less hits it directly. Then you switch to a slightly darker value group to indicate halftones - those are the areas of the form that are hit by light, but which are turning away from the light, just before the object becomes shadow. You can use this logic for every property of light.

And there are five major properties light exhibits:

Average Light
Halftone
Average Shadow
Reflected/Ambient Light
Ambient Occlusion

The trick to grouping values is to try to leave a measurable gap between your groups.

Remember how there were 256 choices? Say you use values 10-20 for your average light group. You may want to skip the next 5-10 tones on the grayscale, and use values 30-40 for your halftone group. That little jump has two benefits: it further simplifies your value system by leaving behind unused space, and it makes your groups more visually identifiable - hence more readable - for the viewer.

When studying other artists, see if you can apply this to your analysis. What are their value groups? How many of them are there? How big are the gaps between them? Are those gaps between groups all the same, or do they differ? This will help you feel like you’re not merely copying some reference when you do a study, but truly understanding what makes the whole thing work.
Want to see this lesson in a video? Here’s one from my archives!

What I’m Working On & Industry-Related Items

I just received an advance copy of my new book, Debt-Free Art Degree Vol. II: Character Design! It’s been about a year in the making (books take so much longer than videos), so it’s super cool to finally have a copy to hold in my hands. I’ll be sharing some samples of it online, so stay tuned! As mentioned in my previous newsletter, the pre-order raffle is still open to enter. I’ll be giving away 10 courses, and 1 mentorship program. Follow this link to find your preferred store or retailer, and you can submit your pre-order to officially enter the giveaway!

I’ve also got a couple of related livestreams coming up! It will be a kind of informal, 2-day workshop. In the first session (Sept 18), we’ll look at classical figure drawing, and how we can break down the figure, draw it well, and most importantly, internalize that information to then use on our character designs. Then on the 2nd session (Sept 23), we will do just that - put the figure drawing lessons to use for the applied art of character design. This ties right in with the new book, of course, so I’ll be discussing what’s in the book as well, and showing how you can put it to use.

And for folks not in a position to purchase the book, no worries, the livestreams will be fully informational on their own!

*Form is open - feel free to join the list as early as now!*

Being able to execute good character designs is a skill that can open up many opportunities in the entertainment industry. And not just for character design jobs. But any kind of illustration work (eg. children’s books) benefits from character design skill, as does vis div and concept art roles.

Worth Checking Out: ElectroBOOM

One of my favourite things about the internet has always been that it allows you to find passionate people in other disciplines. Through them, you can dip your toes into all kinds of worlds that you may never have even bothered to think about otherwise. I don’t think I would have ever developed an interest in audio, woodworking or electronics (things I love now), if it weren’t for the ability to randomly find creators on the internet doing their thing. There’s just something that rubs off on you when someone is truly passionate about what they do.

I could point to many examples here, but have you ever stumbled across ElectroBOOM on YouTube? It features Mehdi Sadaghdar, whose mission is to basically teach you how electricity works. And he is more than happy to put himself in harm’s way to do it! It is equal parts educational and hilarious, and he fully deserves the vast audience he’s cultivated. Laughing and learning is a great combo, and I guarantee you will do both of those things by giving ElectroBOOM a look. Try his latest video on plasma-globes!