Paint like you have been painting but then use your mind to think "i just posted that my midtones and shadows are too bright. Why dont I make them darker" and then make your midtones and shadows a little darker.

>>7958280
Your midtones should be what the initial value of your canvas is. If your midtones are too bright, all your other values will be pulled up, too dark, vice versa. A very common practice, that imo literally every digital artist should do if going for realism, is starting with a tinted midtone background rather than pure white. It's almost like a cheat code because your brain will do all the work for you

>>7958306
I used to start with the 10% black canvas since pure white is too bright, but recently I increased that number to 30.

>>7958311
yeah, pretty much, whatever your starting value is dictates how a piece reads simply because of how our eyes process contrast.

A base canvas higher in value? Compresses your values into brighter value ranges, airy, light, outdoors, fresh, powerful, energetic, etc

Darker value? Compresses values into lower ranges, Moody, dangerous you want the focus to be on the subject, ominous, scary, intimate, etc

Midrange allows you to either shift up or down and has the most flexibility in terms of what you want your value ranges to be.

And for OP, as you get better at creating your value ranges, you'll come to find you frequently break these general rules for stylistic purposes.

>>7958306
>>7958315
nigga, midtones are based on the local value, you don't apply an imprimatura and then go "ah yes, so my white and black objects' midtones will be this value"

>>7958324
You're talking about local value with rendering, I'm talking about the global ambient underpainting. Two different things.

>>7958329
the op is obviously talking about midtones in the context of rendering, given he says shadows in the same context, and making both his mids and darks "too bright" compositionally would just be moving it towards a high minor key, which 1) is not an issue and 2) is not something you'd be vaguely alluding to with a picture of a retarded pepe on the permabeg anime porn board

You are painting on a white canvas.

>>7958549
I mean I don't think it's that hard to understand.
>>7958551
Even this anon understands OP's problem stems from just having the initial value of their canvas be too bright, it's shifting the value range. You're continuing to conflate what I'm saying for whatever reason. I even specifically talked about local values but with the term value ranges, so I don't know what you're on about

>>7958654
nigga, op is asking about midtones and SHADOWS, he's not talking about keys, you dumb fuck

>>7958673
Honestly, at this point I'm convinced you really just don't understand how value contrast works and I can re explain it over and over and over and over but it won't ever click for you because you're being so rigid in what you believe to be the complete and absolute truth that you're overlooking the actual reason for OP's problem. There is no point talking to you about this anymore as it's not going to go anywhere.

>>7958688
nigger, you're not talking about the same thing op is talking about, you dumb retard
do you even know what a fucking key is? it's like you just don't understand the terms used and just invent your own reality

>>7958691
I think the fact that you've started hurling insults their way says more than enough about you

>>7958691
pyw, grace us with you genius, show us the skill demands your rigid logic be the absolute truth. Don't be a pussy now, you're the one getting all aggro when I've been more than respectful. No I'm not going to post my work first, if you're that confident in your opinion surely your skill will back it up compared to mine. Go ahead

samefag harder, beggie

>>7958701
You're all the same. Bye bye!

>begtard mad
if you have two brain cells to rub together, you'll google the terms you chose to ignore in order to construct your make believe reality and learn something

>>7958280
Make your canvas darker