I used to think my digital art was done when I stopped adding stuff

Honestly, I posted a piece here about three weeks ago, a fantasy landscape I spent maybe 20 hours on. Someone commented, 'Your values are all in the same mid-range, it's making the whole piece feel flat.' I had to look up what they meant. Tbh, I always just focused on color and detail. So I opened the file again and literally turned the whole thing to grayscale. Ngl, it was a mess, just a gray blob. I spent the next two days just reworking the light and dark areas, pushing the shadows way darker and the highlights brighter, without adding a single new element. The difference was crazy. The scene suddenly had depth and the focal point actually popped. Now I check the values on every piece before I call it finished. Has anyone else had a critique that made you re-learn a basic step like that?

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reesepatel7mo ago

Man, that grayscale check is a total game changer, right? It's wild how you can work on something for ages and miss something so basic. I had a teacher point out my terrible perspective once, same kind of gut punch. You just have to go back to the start and fix it.

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mason8476mo ago

Oof that grayscale gut punch is REAL, @reesepatel. Been there with color values, just ruins your whole week.

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phoenix_wells7mo ago

My first year art final was a whole cityscape in full color. Spent like 40 hours on it. My professor @reesepatel made me flip it to grayscale and the whole thing looked flat as paper, no depth at all. I had to redo all the shadows from scratch. Felt like my soul left my body for a week, lmao. That check saves me from myself every single time now.

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