Values In Digital Illustration - The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

1. Introduction: The difference between a good image and a great image can be seen right at the first sight. But what makes our eye differentiate this in only a few seconds. Our eyes perceive a lot more information than is projected to us by our brains. The great image is easily readable to our eyes and brain in a fragment of a second. Having the values right is one of the concepts that makes all artworks easily readable. What are values? It is basically how light or dark something is, and how you can check it? In gray-scale. In this class, I'm going to teach you how to make sure that you have your values right in your artworks. Hi, my name is Alexandra aka The Artmother. I'm an artist, illustrator or an educator, and my superpower is that I make complicated art topics easy for beginners. In this class, we are going to dive deep into values. Through various exercises, you will practice creating harmony within your artworks and to make sure that they are easily readable in gray-scale too. Because that is what will make your audience attracted to it. [MUSIC] Throughout our class, I'm going to work on an iPad art procreate, but you can follow it in any software. You will just need a working knowledge of it. This class is perfect for anyone who is creating arts. It is a perfect fit for beginner illustrators who haven't given a thought to values yet, and they have the feeling that something's off in their artworks. By the end of this class, you will be fully mindful of the values by creating and it will bring you to a totally new level. Trust me. I'm so excited to have you here, and if you're ready, let's get started. 2. About The Class: [MUSIC] Welcome to the class. I'm so happy that you are here with me. In this video, I'm going to talk to you about the structure of the class, the class project, and the resources. The class has the structure of three parts. The first part is where I'm going to talk to you about theory with some worksheets that you can just check out and keep for reference. The second part is for practice, where you're going to practice with me to apply the knowledge from the theoretical part. Then there will be the painting part where I'm going to create a completely new illustration, and applied all to a rendered art in a way or in the style that I'm illustrating in. Now what you can do. First of all, you can use my sketch. This is mainly for very beginners. You can use my sketch in the practice part and then in the painting part as well, and follow me along, and do the exact same illustration as me. It is really good for practice. The second way is that you use my sketch into practice part, and in the final part, you modify it, or you just process the topic of [LAUGHTER] a cat in a box with yarn, and monstera leaves your way. You can do it in your own style, and do a similar illustration, and just apply the knowledge from the class to the final illustration. The third way is that if you don't have the feeling of creating a completely new illustration, you just come with me till the end of the practice part, and then you just get one of your illustrations that is already finished, check it in grayscale, check the values, and with the tips you get in the class, you just fix it. Then to the class project, you include what you did in the practice part, and the final piece will be your art work half in color, half in grayscale so that we can see how you improve the values. You can also include some verts in it, what you have discovered, how you improve your artwork etc. The point of this class or the goal of this class is for you to understand values and make your artworks look better. If you have some artworks that needs fixes, you can just check all of your artworks if they have good values, that would be amazing to go through them and make some changes and adjustments. This way you can improve too. That's about the class project. About the resources. In the resources, you will find worksheets that I have created for you. They're really great for reference to refer back. You can print them out to have them. You will get my sketch, you will get to Canvas, then I'm going to paint in. You can just add your things there. You will get two of my favorite illustration brushes. I didn't make new brushes for this class because that's not the point now. You can download these brushes into resources. Maybe you already have them if you have been with me in my other classes. That's all for this video. Let's get into the theory part, and there'll be one more video before the end to remind you how to build up your class project. All right. See you in the next video. [MUSIC] 3. What Are Values? : [MUSIC] What are values? There are seven elements of art; line, shape, form, space, texture, color, and value. It is the seventh element of art. Let's just take a look on each of them just for a second. With lines, we create shapes. Then when we add shading to a shape, it becomes a form. This is one base for art and illustration in any medium. We create, for example, characters only by this. When we are talking about the whole artwork, we need to add some more things to it. When we want to, let's say, this is a character, or just this sphere, if we want to place this sphere into a space, we do it with perspective. There are tools for placement, orientation, etc of lines, and objects to create the illusion of depth and space. Then with texture, it is more obvious in traditional media because, for example, in the watercolors, we have already the texture of the watercolor paper, or on canvas, we have the texture of the canvas and we have the texture of the brush strokes. In digital, we need to add this artificially because we have just a blank canvas and pixels. If we want to add texture, we need to add effects like this. So we have digital brushes for that. Then colors, obvious, so we add color to our artworks in different ways, and then there is value. What is value? Value in art is essentially how light or dark something is. If we want to understand it a little bit more, let's visualize them. I'm going to go to the second worksheet, so we can visualize it as a scale or gradient from dark to light. When we are illustrating realistically or painting realistically, we usually go in shading in a gradient. We add shadows and then blend it into the white so it becomes rendered. When we are talking about fully realistic illustration in artwork, we talk about all of these lightness and darkness in a picture. But not every picture has to have all of these. A value scale as the definition of these shapes. For example, in an artwork, you don't need to have a shade between these two or a shade between these two. Most artworks have a definite value scale and we're going to talk about it later. If you want to see the values in a picture, you need to take a look at it in gray-scale. I have prepared one of my artworks here to see what values we have in it. As you can see, my lightest light is actually this. It has complete white, and my darkest is somewhere here. For example here. If you take a closer look, you can see that there aren't all of the intensities of the gradient in this image, but there are definite scales within that. Now the question is how to check an image in gray-scale. Let's just answer it in the next video. [MUSIC] 4. How To Check Values?: [MUSIC] The question is how to see an image in a grayscale. For example, if I am in an artwork like this, there are so many layers. How can I check it in grayscale? One way is to group all of the layers together and duplicate it. Let's say I'm going to duplicate it. If I have a duplicate of these layers, I can click on the Group and hit Flatten, and it will flatten my image. Set hue saturation brightness and set the saturation down, I can see the image in grayscale. The downside of having all layers flattened and created this grayscale version of it is that, if you want to adjust the values, you need to do it again. For example, there is a mistake and you want to correct it, you need to do the process again. Creating a new group, flattening the image, made setting it to grayscale to check how it worked. There is a better way to do this, if you want to adjust the values in your image and there's a trick for that. I'm just going to turn this off. I have a layer here, can you see that? It is called the Value Check Layer, and I can create it in any Canvas or file I'm creating in any program. It's to build work in Photoshop as well, and basically any software where you have layers and blending modes. To create a Value Check layer, you need to create a new layer, select gray in the middle range, and fill the whole layer with it. Now go to the blending mode and change it to color. This way, you can turn it on and off and see what you've done. For example, in this artwork, I can see that this tree is blending to the background. I'm going to find a layer. For example, create a layer below it and add some shadows. Let's see. I will add some shadows just randomly. Now can I go back to the value check layer and see how my values are in this image now, if I can see things well. That's how you create a value check layer. What can we say about this picture now? We can see what is lighter and what is darker, but we cannot see the color only values. Every color has an underlying value somewhere between white and black, and in the next video, we are going to talk about the values of colors. See you in the next video. [MUSIC] 5. Values of Color: [MUSIC] As I already told you, every color has an underlying value, somewhere between white and black. Let's take a look on the color wheel in grayscale. Different colors have different values. Not all the colors are equal in terms of light and dark. Now, each color has an individual value scale. Let's say this color. When I go through these hues, you can see how the lightness and darkness changes. Every color has an individual value scale with tints all the way up to white, and shades all the way down to black. Tints are color plus white, and shade is color plus black. This is important more in traditional media and color theory. In digital, we have unlimited possibilities regarding color. Notice how many colors in the color wheel have similar values despite having very different hues. When placed next to each other, these colors would have very little contrast in value and your eye may find it difficult to identify which color has more importance in your painting. Let just take a look at it. I have this second worksheet. There are these colors, that look completely different. This is blue, this is orange, this is green, this is orange, this is blue, and this pink. When I turn on the value check layer in this worksheet, can you see the difference now? They are completely equal in terms of values. If you would place these two colors in an outfit next to each other in black and white, you wouldn't see them. Let's just take this experiment. I will turn off these colors, and I had just painted some of these things in these color combinations. Let just turn on a value check layer, can you see anything? If I would, for example, say to my daughter, I will print it to you on my printer, but I would run out of coloring with printing black and white, she wouldn't see a thing and she would say, mommy, there's nothing on there. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, this is why you need to think about the values. The question is, why it is important to have the values right, and actually, what is right? The easiest way to explain it is like this. Your image has to be easily readable in grayscale. Just imagine another scene. You'll have to create an artwork or a flyer for the client, or maybe your friend and you run out of colors in your printer, and you have to print it in black and white anyways, because it is a lost moment, they have to give away one more flyer and the client says, whatever, it can be a black and white. If your artwork has the values off, you will just get a big black sheet of paper or just a very light sense of the original image and your artwork blends into the background that cannot even be seen and that's not good. Also, think of it like this. Even though our eye sees color, it receives also the information about the values. If your artwork has good values, people will be more attracted to it as all the information will be more easily readable by their brains. Value is also extremely important for those who are colorblind. They want to see our artwork too. When you are illustrating, think about it. Will my colorblind friend see this, or can I print this in black and white? This is why you need to check your values regularly. Now the question arises, what are good values? Well, I don't think there's a golden rule for it, just make sure to check your illustrations frequently, if they are readable in grayscale. There are several techniques I use for making sure I have good values, and we will learn about these techniques later in the class. In this video, we have made clear what are values and that in order to have an artwork that pleases the eye, we need to have them right. Now let's talk about the values scales, and their practical application in artworks, in the next video. [MUSIC] 6. About Value Scales: [MUSIC] Again, values are best understood when visualized as a scale or gradient from dark to light, and let's say white to black. The number of values between white and black are actually infinite. However, for simplicity artists prefer to reduce their range to a scale of 1-5 or 10. You do not need to utilize all values in this scale, many artists prefer to use just a limited value range, which can promote harmony in the painting. The range doesn't have to be from white to black, it can be from white to gray, from gray to black, or in the middle. Then you create a value scale within this range, and a value scale is the number of values chosen within the selected value range. Does it make sense to you now? If you choose a limited value range, it can make harmony in the painting and you can also set the mood of your artwork. For example, a value range without very brights and darks result of vintage mood. An artwork with full brights would work well in a delicate, bright illustration. With a pastel colors, and a darker range would work well in a night scene. I have created some examples for you for this. Let's take a look at it. I have created an illustration, this is the illustration that I'm going to work with and you can work with as well in this class. I have created several color variations and chosen value ranges and set the value scale accordingly. Here they're five colors, here are just three and I'm going to talk about all of them. If you turn on the value check layer, you can see that these colors fit the values, I played a lot with it to find these colors and in a second you will practice it as well. Now, just pay attention. With the colors, there are no really brights and really darks, you can create a vintage mode, for example. If you have only very bright colors, it can work with these pastel colors, very bright, delicate illustrations. Then when you have these darker colors, this can be a night scene. Then if our values range from white to black, it is called a high contrast image. If it has small value range, it is a low contrast image. For example, here we have a very contrast, we have a very light and very dark-colored. This value range is quite contrastive, so this image will be a high contrast image while here we don't have that much of a difference between these three colors and it is a low contrast image but still, if I turn it on, you can differentiate these values from each other. Here you can see the very contrastive things, here you can see it is really dark and here this is really bright, and here this is in a middle range. To choose a value range, simply choose the brightest bright and the darkest dark for your image. Let's say we know that in a particular artwork we will work with five different colors, so we choose the lightest light and a darkest dark to set the value range and then three more within this range. This will help us to set the values automatically and help us to choose colors the right way. The more values we have in our value scale, the more detailed our artwork we'll be. Just take a look, a fully rendered and shaded image for example, like this one. This is not a fully rendered, but there are so many details, so I will turn it on. A more detailed image has more values in it than as a flat design. Neither of them is better than the other, but we need to be mindful of values to choose colors right and to get the results what we want. Other thing is that as we already said they're hues that have the same values. We can of course choose multiple colors for the selected values to have a better color variation for the artwork. Where we have been here, so let's say we have five colors for the artwork we can choose several hues of the same value for the same value, [LAUGHTER] if that makes sense. Also, we do not need to limit ourselves with these rules. These are just great base to start our artwork with, they're great guidelines. We can go intuitively when creating an artwork and just get back to these rules, then we see that something's off and this is why we have the value check layer. We see something's off, we cannot see something for example in this cat, so we adjust the layers, and the colors, and we will learn about that in a second, how to do that. In the next video, we are going to do a little exercise, and we are going to choose a value range and choose five values to create a value scale and work with that. See you in the next video. [MUSIC] 7. Practice Greyscale: [MUSIC] Before we approached a practice, it is important for us to have a simple sketch that we are going to work with throughout the class. You can use my sketch that I have here. It is totally fine to do so. You can use your owns sketch if you wish. It has to have at least three things. In front of each other or next to each other so that we can really experiment with the values, but you are totally free to use my sketch and for the final outfit, just create another one. In this lesson, we are going to paint in gray-scale. But before we approach the painting itself, we will need to select the value scale and the value range, obviously. To have it easy for now, we are going to have the value range from white to black. We are not going to limit you for this or for this are for the middle. You can practice it later. Let's just start with white to black. What the first task is. At this first row, we are going to fill in this value scales and we are going to use this in different practices in the next video. We are now going to work with only this. Find the value scale layer here. This is the first one. Choose the Vitis whites, so it will remain white. choose the darkest, dark. This will be black. Just drop the color there. Now let's find a meal. You can choose either this or this. I will choose a bit brighter and put it into the middle. Now let's find a color between these two. I think this would be the great value, and the color between these two, it could be this one, for example. Now we have a value scale and we are going to paint this image with it. Let's just create a layer below at all. Let's say here. Now before we start, there are some rules that we have to apply or just think about them. First one, we have an object generally, it is simple color, on there we talk about values, a midtone. It is the middle part of our chosen scale. Then what makes it lighter, is the light coming from the light source, and obviously where the shadows are, it gets darker. There are other rules as well. For example, if you want to create the illusion of depth into image, we can play with the values two things further away are paler, brighter, and colder then things closer to us are darker, warmer and more saturated. For example, if you take a look at this image, these things in the background are paler, brighter, and these trees that are closer to us are darker. Because we see them more or they're closer to us. If we want to play something in a distance, for example, to the background, we will need to choose lighter values to do so. Obviously these are just guidelines. Again, we often find exceptions like saying the night scene, and here comes the next rule. Things in focus are usually brighter as our goal is to lead the viewer through our image. We wanted the most important things in our ultimate to grab the attention so we can total use brighter values to make this work. We also need to think about the lighting situation, where's the light coming from, or the rays of light? Which side of the object is lit. Now we are not going to render too much, so this is not relevant, but when you are creating a more complicated artworks. For example, a scene like this, you need to think about where's the light coming from? Which side of the house is lit, for example, are the rays of light, etc. I'm going to show you another image of mine. For example, in this artwork, I have a value Check layer in all of my files. You can see that the things in the background, a paler, brighter things in focus are really bright. It is considered where the light is coming from, where the shadows have to be, and things like that. Now I see that maybe I could have added some shadows up here, but whatever [LAUGHTER], you can always find mistakes in your artworks, but this is how we progress. [LAUGHTER] Now what we're going to do is to take the value scale we have created and the sketch we have drawn and just paint below it the values to see how things were. Think about what is in focus, what is in distance, if you can see every part of the object well, this is a simple illustration. Now it might seem easy, but it's not that easy when you work in color. This is why it would be virtually do this exercise in all of your artworks to create value thumbnails. Just to note, how would you love to have your values approximately before you approach painting itself. Throughout that painting process, values might change, mainly if you start to play with light and this is why you will need that value check layer even more, it will always help you. Let's just start. I want this cuts to be in focus. Maybe I will go for this white. I will choose my liner brush for this and this layer. I'm just going to add this white for the cut because I want her to be in focus, but I don't want her to be completely white. I will lay be add a mid tone effect on her here and here, and maybe on her eyes like this. Maybe he or she can have this one. Then, let's say I want the box to be the same midtone here. I will add a mid tone for the box. Maybe add the lighter ones for these things here. Maybe this darker ones for these leaves at the back. You can do little experiments about the different ways to paint with this five values, the same image. There are so many ways. Now you don't need to think about color, only these ones. Let's say I want my values to be like this. I can adjust it of course, I can do different value ranges and values scales. If I go back to these cats and turned a value scale on, you can see how many different ways I can do it. Be creative. [LAUGHTER] After we had a simple tones placed to this image, you can try to add some shading. I will not do that because this is a beginners' class. If you're more advanced you can play with light and shadows as well. Just shade the objects to the x, then you are used to doing your illustrations. Working in gray-scale is so much different. But it really teaches you to be mindful of the values in your future work. Trust me. Now let's move to the next video and do the same in monochrome. [MUSIC] 8. Practice Monochrome: [MUSIC] What is a monochrome image? Simple. It is an image created of different values of the same hue. What we are going to do in this video is the same that we have done in the previous one, but in color. Let's take our jam value scale and choose a hue. Let's drop the color to match the values and create a monochrome value scale. I'm going to turn off this black and white and create a new layer for the monochrome and now from the layers choose a monochrome layer and choose a hue. I'm going to go with this pink. I don't know why, but let's do that. If you remember. I just said that when you paint an object, you paint it in a mid-tone and then add light and dark when you shade it. This color, in the saturated way, will be the mid-tone, so the middle range. I'm just going to drop this color here. Now what I'm going to do, turn on the value check layer and see if this color matches this value, and it is a bit darker. Can you see that? What I need to do is to make it a bit lighter. I will go make it a bit lighter and drop it there and now it matches, so now I will turn the value check on, and this is going to be my mid-tone. Now I'm going to do this with all of these. This is the color that I'm going to work with, and now I need to find a darker version of it so I will go for the darker ones now. I will just drop in here, value check layer on, and I still need to have a darker, so I would go even darker. Value check, even a little bit darker, value check. Even more like this. You don't need to be 100 percent precise. You just need to get this value scale the same. I will choose an even darker version right here. Value check, a little bit darker. Let's check it. Wow. Nice. Let's find the light version. I will go back to this mid-tone and just go up. Let's see. Oh, almost, I need a little bit lighter. Now for the whites, if you want to do completely white, it will be like completely this white, but I want it to be a little bit of pinkish. Now this will not fit 100 percent because this is not white, but you can do this not to have fully white. Now I turn on the value check layer and it is almost the same. This is a value range with white and black widows free values in the middle. Now what I'm going to do is the exact same thing. I will go back to the layer I have created and now I will paint the whole with these colors in monochrome. You don't need to follow the same value map that you have created here. You can do it intuitively again. I will just fill in this cat and I see now that I will need white at least for her eyes and that's just okay to add that white. Just add white for the eyes so it looks great. Now let's say, I will make the box this pink. I will make these things here a bit darker now. I will go, I don't know, this light pink for these ones and these dark for the leaves. If I want, I can add even more details. Let's say I can add things like this. I will choose this light. Oops, and then dot, for example, this one, add this to the leaves. You can now play a bit more if you wish. I love to play with color and we will see in a second how it will look like in our value scale. One thing that I don't like is that these two almost blend. Maybe I will change the colors. I will put this darker one as the color of the box to make a bit more difference and then this is a very vibrant color for this. What do you see? It's cute. I will turn on the value check layer, and here is my little cat. It is similar to this one. A bit different but almost the same. Now that you have done the hard work, I will show you a little trick. I haven't shown it to you before so that you practice, but if you take the origin or grayscale painting, so turn off the monochrome, turn on the grayscale painting and create a new layer. Grab the mid-tone, all the hue you have used, and fill this layer with it. Now, go to the layer of this color and change it to color just as you did with the value check layer and now you have the exact same artwork. If you played a little bit differently with the values you'll have it different but as you can see, you can create a monochrome painting by simply underpainting the values and adding a layer of color over it, change the blending mode and you will have this. You can have different blending modes as well, which adds color to it [LAUGHTER] in different ways. For example, in overlay, you can have a different version or you can have add, you have this pastel version with different value scale. You have a screen, you have lighten. Oh, this is cute. [LAUGHTER] I love this color here. Basically, what I wanted to say to keep the value scale that you have chosen or the value range you have chosen, you add color and you can play with it. I really love this version, this cream looks pretty nice. This is a limited value range for brights. [LAUGHTER] Nice and I will go back to the color just in case you want to experiment with them. Did you like this exercise? I think this was so much fun. Now, let's move to the next fun part where we are going to work with it and different colors so see you there. [MUSIC] 9. Practice Color: [MUSIC] In this video, we are going to create a full colored version of this art work. In the last part you had to choose only one hue, but now please choose at least three or five max. We will not go too deeply into color theory. The point now will be to simply see the same things, the values, shadows, and light. Also, I'm working with color. Let's make a color palette. This is going to be actually a color thumbnail that we are going to create right now. We are not going to go in too deep into how we are going to paint the final illustration. There will be a painting part after this video where we're going to or I'm going to show you how would I illustrate this cute cat with having values. Let's just do it. I will turn off even the gray scale and I will create a new layer and choose the color layer of this. Usually I start with thinking about what colors I will need to have the illustration right. I want this cat to be a ginger cat. You can create several versions of this cat to experiment what colors would you like. I already done this when I done these experiments and I decided that I want a cat that is orange. I'm going to just pick this color up. Let's just see what it does. Maybe I will need to have it a bit more orangey here, and I will just drop it into the middle. I want an orange cat. I will turn on the Value Check layer and I can see that it is light. I can have this color actually here. This fits this value range and it is okay for me. Now I have a color for the cat. I will have a color for the cat in a light yellow for the whites. [NOISE] I'm here. Value check. Now let's find a bit darker color for the box. I want the box to be teal. Maybe like this. Let's see what it does. Yeah, I had that spot right. [LAUGHTER] Very nice. Then I will need some colors for the leaves. I will need some dark green, even darker green. Let's say this one. I will value check it. It's still bright so I will go even darker. Let's say this. Value check. Even darker, just a little bit darker. Like this. I want it a bit yellowish. Let's see what it does. I will value check it. Let's keep it like that. Now let's find the darkest dark. I need a color for this. Maybe I'm going to choose a dark magenta and I will just go with this. Let's see. I create a color thumbnail. Now for this layer, I will create a new layer. I will hold down and take the orange color. Fill in the catty. I can again add the eyes back with whites. That would be totally okay. I wanted the box to be teal, the leaves green. Actually I misses a color like this. These two will not be seen. If I put it here, can you see that for the same value? I add the value to clarity, you cannot see this. Maybe I will need to change some colors. I miss this vibrant color from it. Again, what I want to say is that you don't need to limit yourself with these things. These are as guidelines. You can totally have, for example, blue as well and this pink as well. But make sure not to place these two colors next to each other. There will be a video where I will show you value hacks. How can you still have this colors next to each other, but still have the values right? I will just recolor this thing. I decided to have it like this. You can create several versions of this as we are going to create a final illustration from this color thumbnail. Basically, I exchanged this pink to this blue and I will just have it like this. Let's check the values. Perfect. I think it looks incredible. I allow the color scheme I created here. I will exchange this color on my color scheme here. This is what my final piece will look like or have the colors like. In the next video, I'm going to show you the Value hacks and then we can move on to the final artwork where I'm going to just illustrate a whole on my own way to have it a bit more rendered, be more detailed, show you the way how I'm creating my illustrations. But let's just now continue to the value hacks part. Let's see how we can hack these things. [MUSIC] 10. Value Hacks: [MUSIC] In this video, I'm going to present to you solutions or hacks to the situation when you see that something's off in your illustration. Ninety nine percent of the time it is because you placed two different hues of the same value next to each other. What can we do in this situation? Let's just take a look on this beautiful illustration I have created for you to practice to use hacks. Let's turn on the Value Check layer. If you can see, there are several problems in it. These leaves are blending into the background. The pot blends into the surface it is on and these decorative elements blend into the pot itself. What can we do about it? There are free hacks I would love to present to you that I use to solve these situations. The first one is to set the brightness. This is when working in layers comes in handy. If you have objects on different layers, it will be a really easy. Choose the one that you want to set, for example, these leaves. I select the layer, go to hue saturation brightness and set the brightness up, for example, or down. I'll set it up. If you are not working in layers but you have everything on one layer, you can do the same with the selection tool. You would need to select the exact shapes you want to set. It is more demanding, but you can do that. Now let's check the value check layer. It is still not the bad, so I will set the brightness of the background. I will select the background, go to the hue saturation brightness and set it darker. Well, now I can see my leaves here. What about the second solution? It is add shading. When I say at shading, it means at shadows and light as well. Let's just start with shadows. Drop shadows help a lot in differentiating values from each other. For example, here, this book is totally blending into the background or to the table it is on. I will create a new layer over this ground, select a darker version of this color just for the shadow. Select the shader brush and just add some shadows below the pot. Well, you check, and that's it. Can you see that? It already differentiated to two. Adding light. Let's add a real shading somewhere and let it be these leaves. That will be the easiest one. I will go back to the leaves and I will choose a dark green. Select a shader. I will just enhance the rendering of this leaves at this part, so it will be a bit darker here as well. I can choose a color for your light. I will add it to this edge. It's even more rendered. When I turn on the Value Check layer, it pops out from the background even more. Now let's see the third hack. It is using outlines. Use outlines, outline things. One thing in illustration is, and in every art, using outlines is an element for style or decoration. If you take a look on any object in real life, there are no outlines. There's color, light, and shadow, and that gives us these dimensions. Now, we can use outlines purposefully. For example, for this exact particular reason. I will turn off the Value Check layer. I will use this technique on these decorations. I will create a new layer over it and maybe choose this dark blue that I have chosen for the shadow here, choose the liner brush and just outline these little shapes. These helps in flat designs a lot and in illustrations where there is not that much of a rendering or shading, these will help you a lot. Now if I turn on the Value Check layer, you can see that the decoration is still there. It would work to change the brightness a little bit. Maybe I will do that. Hue saturation brightness is a bit brighter. Now it looks so much better. In a complex situations, you can use all three. If you have a situation, as you can see, for example, now, I also set the brightness and the layer, outlines, I could have added shading to the whole pot, etc. There are so many ways you can utilize this hacks to make your artworks better. Now I think you are all set. You know how to apply and check values and also how to solve situations to make it all perfect. Now let's move on to the final part and see you in the next video where we are going to start to paint our class project. [MUSIC] 11. Creating the Final Artwork - Part 1.: [MUSIC] Welcome to the last part where I'm going to create the final illustration. I will go back to this practice piece and pick up the colors that I have chosen. I am going to go to the palettes, create a new palette, and go back to classic. What I'm going to do is to choose these three main colors. As you can see, this is the darker version of this color, and this is the lighter version of this color. Basically, I have three colors here. I will pick up this orange, and put it under the second place. I will pick up the pink put in here, and pick up this green and put it here. Now what I usually do in my illustrations is that, I get a lighter and a darker version of the same hue, so that I can shade and light with then. This will fit this value range. Actually, I already have the lighter color for this one, and I have the darker version of this one. This green might be as well a darker version. We will see. I will just choose a darker version for it here, and a lighter version for it. I will go here and choose a lighter version for the pink and go to the orange. Orange is that and a darker version for it. Now I have approximately same values here. It will be good enough. You don't need to overcomplicate this, choose the colors intuitively. Through out the process, I will do the same. What I'm going to do now is that I am going to create colored thumbnail. I have selected this under painting and the sketch and connected the two. Then I select this layer, go up to the gallery. I'm holding down, I have this layer in my hand. Can you see that? Magic. I will go to this file piece of artwork and just release, and I have a color thumbnail here, and I can work. I have a smaller version. I know where, what color to use. One way to work with this is to create several versions of the sketch. This is called color thumbnailing. Just as I've done in here, create several versions, experiment with color ranges, color schemes, hues, values, etc. Try them out just with these little other paintings, and choose the one that you like and just place it to the final artwork piece, and you will have it there. How wonderful is that? I already have the colors. I'm going to use my liner and shader that you can find in the resources, and I will just start painting. In the layers I have this rough sketch, I will just delete that. I don't need that. I will go to the sketch, lower the opacity. I will set to multiply. This is what I usually do. I will create a new layer below, and I will start with the cat. I am going to pick up this midtone color here and just fill in the shapes. I will just speed up something so that it's not boring for you, so you'll just keep watching. [MUSIC] I will create a new layer behind the head for the bottom and the tail of the cat, so that I can differentiate it later with the shading. [MUSIC] Make sure to have your shapes right. What I'm going to do now is to Alpha lock both of these layers, and I'm going to shade. I'm going to choose a darker version of this orange color. I will choose a shader and just add a bit of shading behind the hat. It will automatically create a difference. Now this is a time to create a value check layer and then start with that. I'll just create a new layer, add gray, fill it, and choose color. Now can you see that I have a midtone, and I already differentiated these two parts of the cat? I will turn it off. Now I'm just going to apply shading to most of the parts of the cat. [MUSIC] I always start adding the eyes, so I will create a layer on top. I will choose the liner. I can choose white, and just filling the shape. [MUSIC] What I wanted to do here is to add a new layer of these eyelets over it. This is why I exceeded this lines here so that I don't have missing pixels there. I will create a new layer and choose this main color. Maybe I will turn off the hat so that I can paint just the eyelids. [MUSIC] I will create a new layer above it all. Choose black and finish these eyeballs. [MUSIC] I will Alpha lock these two eyes. Choose the shader and white, and I will add this light here. Then I basically just continue adding details to the face, generally all with the liner brush as it creates great shapes. Then I add effect and shading with the shader brush. I also create some fur texture over the main cat shape to make it more interesting. I don't forget to check the values regularly. Generally, the whole is in the same value as in the cat here, as you can see. If you take a look on it from far away, for example, you make it this small, you can see that the values are similar. Now let's continue it all in the next video. [MUSIC] 12. Creating The Final Artwork - Part 2. : [MUSIC] Let's continue with the box. What color is the box? It is this light. I will just create a new layer above everything and just fill it. [MUSIC] I will create this top to a separate layer. I will create a layer below for this lower part. [MUSIC] Now, what I'm going to do is, as this color has the same hue as this one, and this would blend to each other, I will try to shade it only a little bit and add outlines to make it a separate thing. I will Alpha Lock obviously both. Go with the Shader Brush, make it big, and just really lightly I will add this shadow here. I will add the shadow below this thing here. At this top part, I will choose this one maybe be just a little bit of light on the top, and that will be for my box. I will turn on the sketch so they can see if the shape is right. I can see that this bottom shape is a bit off, so I will just adjust it. I will just create a bit of outlining with this dark one and the liners. I will turn on the sketch and I will make it smaller. I will add outlines. [MUSIC] Now, what I'm going to do is to work with the yarn. Choose this pink. [MUSIC] Pretty nice. I will Alpha Lock the whole. Just the darker version with the shader, I will add some shading like this and I will create a new layer over. I will choose this darker version and the liner, and I will add the details. [MUSIC] Now let's work on the leaves. I will create a new layer below we know, like here. I will choose the midtone for the leaves and just fill them in. [MUSIC] I will put this leaves to different layers. [MUSIC] Looks good to me. Now I will Alpha Lock these both. I will choose a darker version and the Shader Brush. Where these two meet, I will need to add shadows to the layer that is below. This will automatically separate the two. As you can see, this will be darker. So it will be much more easily seen. What is good is to add the shadow behind the cat so that it differentiates that or that leaf as well. For example, to this leaf, I will add this shading so that the cat really stands out. 13. The Class Project: Congratulations on finishing the class project. I hope that you enjoyed the process and the class itself too. In this video, I would love to talk to you about the class project itself, how I want you to upload it. One thing that I would want from you now is to create a new canvas and import all the little variations you have created in the practice part, the re-scale, the monochrome and the colored version. If you have created even more variations like this, you can upload that too. Build up your project. Let me see what you have done during the class. Then, if you have created a final piece, I would love you to upload it in half gray-scale, half colorful. Let me just show you how to do that, it is pretty easy. You can turn on the Value Check layer, hit the arrow, select the layer, make it free form, and just make it half. Now you will have your artwork half color, half gray-scale. I would love you to upload it to the project gallery like this. If you have not created a final art piece, just selected an artwork and set the, values and fixed them, you should do the same so that we can see that it truly works in gray-scale. Basically, this is what I wanted from you. I'm excited to see what you create in this class. Now let's continue into the last video where we are going to sum it all up. See you there. [MUSIC] 14. Final Thoughts : [MUSIC] How do you feel? I'm so glad that you didn't give up and that you made your way through the class. I'm sure that by now you've totally got what values are, and that it will be a regular practice to be mindful of them and well, to create the value-checked layer in all of your files. I'm so proud of you and I think you can be really proud of yourself too. Now let's do a little recap on all the knowledge that we have gathered from the class. We made it clear that value is the intensity of color. That we can choose a value range within this intensity and that we can create a value scale within this range that will help us to choose the right colors for our artworks. You have learned the rules of the application and most importantly, applied to a gray-scale illustration. Then you practice the same in monochrome and then with a full-color scheme. Then you've got some pro tips to hack problematic situations, and now you're armed up with a pro knowledge that'll be your left hand on your future art journey. Let me know what you think about the class in a review, it is very important to me to know what you think about the class and for other students to see if the class is a great fit for them. When you share your autonomics on social media, tag me as @theartmother so that I can re-share your artworks. Follow me on social media, on Instagram, and Facebook, and here on Skillshare too so that you get notified about the latest classes, challenges, and announcements, and yeah, see you in my other classes. I wish you all the best and happy creating.