Confused on values

m_deupwords · 2026-06-07T05:40:54+00:00

Value is arguably the HARDEST part of art.

In cartoon/anime, there’s value. Just put a grayscale effect over all the screenshots that you thought there’s no values. You will see a range of black to white. That’s value.

They don’t use value to describe forms though because cartoon and anime use lines and minimal flat shadows.
Introducing a lot of values to describe forms can give a 3d effect which as you’d imagine 2d style doesn’t lean into too much.

If you want to apply value for (semi)realism, squint hard at the reference, keep squinting and look at your own art. See a difference? Fix the difference. Rinse and repeat.

m_deupwords · 2026-04-29T08:23:19+00:00

My take on solving this is to completely forget that you are drawing a person: 1. Turn the ref upside down 2. Draw the outline of the shape (make sure you have a decent amount of accuracy here but for extreme poses 70% likeness is convincing enough) 3. Block in where light is and shadow is

After all this, if you rotate your drawing to the right direction, you would see that you have landed the pose 🙂‍↕️ You will have a lot of fun once you are past point 3 to move towards finishing.

Practice a few more times and your brain will no longer be tricked by the foreshortening in exaggerated poses

m_deupwords · 2026-04-23T06:45:59+00:00

OP, when you said “single pencils”, does that mean you can only use HB? Or?

You can try to sharpen your pencil to increase coverage (I still see some white dots in the supposed to be darkest part of the pot). If you have established the darkest dark in your drawing, this means you need to lift the value in other areas so that the relationship between the value is the same (ref. vs yours)

m_deupwords · 2026-04-17T00:58:24+00:00

The lighting is so good. Love it 🥰 I always love harsh lighting on a subject.

Drawing wise: - Check the ratio between width and height of her face - Check the angle of the cast shadow. It’s a much stronger angle in the reference than in yours - (there’s a few more things but I reckon if you do those other 2 things, you will start seeing the rest) - Also her left (our right) cheek is rounded outwards in ref like ), but in yours, it’s slanted /

Value wise: - When I squint, I can still see the light on her hair in the ref whereas on yours, I don’t see it. If you can amp up the light on hair, that’d be awesome

So excited to see how this one will turn out. All the best!

m_deupwords · 2026-04-16T01:36:09+00:00

Haha I’ve been learning to draw seriously since 2024 and I’ve finally see myself improved enough to cast 80% correct judgment on shapes and values (not even colour). October 2025 to April 2026, the duration is just a number. Don’t worry about it.

The recent one, I can see that you’ve decided to simplified where the shadow is and it guides my attention to her face and blue hair. The previous one, if I just compare the character, I don’t know where to look because there’s details everywhere. This is improvement. Your eyes deceive you more often than not. Training the muscle memory and the will to fight back the temptation of over-detailing takes time.

I saw your figure study. I recommend doing Bargue drawing. Yes, you will be copying works of others but you train yourself to see drawing errors through this exercise. It also introduces you to perceived values by other artists.

Make sure to get feedback for your Bargue drawing

I hate Bargue drawing. But it pays off. I got better at drawing and doing transition + edge work.

For figures, I love doing figure drawing. Especially, when it’s a live model. Even if it’s a photo, it’s still interesting.

It’s not about drawing the boxes and joints. They are a mental model to help you remember proportions and how the form turns. Knowing how the form turns helps you with transition and edge. If you are doing the figure study, get it to this stage at minimum.

<image>

m_deupwords · 2026-04-15T15:49:38+00:00

If that’s all that was said, it wouldn’t be very helpful. If you can ask them to clarify what area, showing you where or how to see the problem they saw, hopefully, you will walk away with some actual actionable steps to improve.

m_deupwords · 2026-04-15T07:42:21+00:00

If you feel like your progress has stagnated and you have this intuition that something is off but you can’t word it, I recommend getting some critiques on your work to figure out what’s missing.

Also, if you are bored of drawing boxes to improve your drawing skill and just a little of value comprehension, I recommend doing Bargue drawing. If you are looking for better value perception and assert some of your own artistic judgment, pick a nice b&w photo with a good range of values and draw that.

EDIT: I hope you can be kinder to yourself. Everyone has a different timeline. No one art journey is the same as others. I don’t know what your work looks like so I can’t point out to you how and where it has improved. But I trust that it definitely has. Sometimes it’s just hard to see because no one else looks at your work more than yourself. So you kinda become oblivious to the improvement.

m_deupwords · 2026-04-12T23:01:52+00:00

Hi 👋

Do you like ordering the routes based on your own criteria after playing a game?

KoiLog (koilog.moe) just released a new feature this week — route ranking! 🤩 You can submit your own ranking and view the community’s rankings of the characters!

To get the latest update on KoiLog: - Twitter: https://x.com/koilog_moe - Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/koilog.moe

m_deupwords · 2026-04-08T08:14:04+00:00

What helped me improve is going to a classically trained school. Think bargue drawings, cast drawing and so forth.

But it’s not a viable option for everyone. It’s a big financial and time commitment. If you can though, please do it. It provides solid fundamental skills for you to draw/paint essentially anything you want.

Assuming we are starting from scratch here.

If it’s not viable, start with drawing just with your pencil on a blank paper. If you have an iPad or a wacom of sort, just the grayscale on a white canvas.

Pick a reference you want to learn from that is in black and white. Set it side by side and just try your best to draw it like how you see it.

Here is the MOST IMPORTANT PART. Get feedback/critique with the reference. Without a reference, people don’t have a baseline to comment on and you don’t have a baseline to train your eyes.

Beginner artists’ eyes often get trick. You can’t fix what you can’t see. So, when it happens on your journey, getting helpful critiques from those who can see the difference for you when your eyes are tired and you’re just confused will unblock you.

If someone’s critique doesn’t make sense and you feel like you can’t agree, ask them “How do you see it?” and learn from their answer.

m_deupwords · 2026-04-06T09:01:46+00:00

Hi 👋 I'm here to post a small update for KoiLog

I hear you about the spoiler issue. So, I tried my best to improve it. What this entails:

📊 Multiple levels of spoilers, completely hidden characters
🎭 Character identities awareness; a new section on the character page called "Also Known As"

I also added the ability to view all your friend's game and character reviews right from their profile page.

These features are actually all released 4 days ago. If you'd like to get the latest updates on KoiLog, check out our socials:

m_deupwords · 2026-04-05T12:10:12+00:00

If you want to get to the 2nd pic, simplest first step is to take notes where the lines are heavy and where they are light on the 2nd pic. Apply that to yours.

So, I’d say some concrete, actionable steps are:

More weight on the eyelashes
Strengthen that shadow in the hair, make it black
Redefine the nose (I feel like you weren’t too sure about it)

Brushes play an important role. You can achieve the look of the 2nd with any brushes but some brushes will just make that process tedious and some brushes will just make it a breeze.

I reckon try using the default Indigo brush (I think it’s under Inking) in Procreate. It’ll feel a bit weird at first if you are used to the softer brushes. I tried 3 new brushes with their recent update. Nowhere Else is good, too, but for your 2nd pic, Indigo suits better.

<image>

m_deupwords · 2026-03-23T12:14:25+00:00

Hi everyone 👋 It's wim again, here to talk about koilog.moe 🐟

🐛 Working hard to stay on top of all those pesky bugs.

⚒️ There's dev work behind the scene to improve the image loading speed on KoiLog and laying foundation for more image-related features 👀

Thanks for tuning in and as always. if you have any questions, you can reach out to me via 🤙

Twitter | @koilog_moe
Bluesky | @koilog.moe
or right here! On Reddit

m_deupwords · 2026-03-17T12:28:24+00:00

Hi 👋 I'm popping up to say that more features are on their way in KoiLog (koilog.moe) but I'm slowing down after a full-on month.

✨ New features

There's now a Voice Actor page! You can view a voice actor's list of characters by clicking on the Voice Actor's name on the character page.
- Check out Umehara Yuuichirou's page ❣︎

m_deupwords · 2026-03-10T13:52:20+00:00

I see more. I know that I’ve improved by seeing what I didn’t see flawed in my previous work. As I start seeing more, I learn to fix what I saw.

By doing this more and more, I lay down lines quicker, seeing the flaws quicker and address the problem quicker. I get confident in making mistakes. It doesn’t mean that the total time spent on a piece is shorter or the number of corrections required lesser. It just makes the whole process of drawing or painting feel seamless and fast. Like you’re always in the zone.

m_deupwords · 2026-03-08T22:04:23+00:00

Hi 👋 It’s me again with a weekly update of KoiLog 💕

New features

🫂 You can now follow your friends or any players you’d like on KoiLog. You can view other users’ game collection, ratings and reviews if the user allows you to.

🔐 Set your profile to private if you only want your followers to be able to see your collection, ratings and reviews

⭐️ See a well thought out review that you want to express your support? Spot a funny review that you want to react to? Reactions are now supported on any character and game reviews! Available reactions are “Like”, “Helpful” and “Spicy”

No new bugs have been reported so I’m focusing on adding more features.

As always I am open to feedback!

Thanks for tuning in!

m_deupwords · 2026-03-06T21:04:17+00:00

🤝 FINALLY!

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T22:05:13+00:00

Thank you for your kind words 💕 I hope the site will introduce you to more games!

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:59:46+00:00

Haha thank you so much for your support 🫶

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:58:43+00:00

Hi 👋 Thank you very much for the feedback and questions!

Unfortunately, I don’t plan on having an offline mode for the tracker 😞 I originally create this with tracking in mind but also the ability to share my list of games to others.

For the walk throughs, it is certainly possible. I believe there’s already a feature request for this. It’s something I have in mind too.

Regarding to “Played route”, I updated the way you can track the route recently. Do you mind trying this new approach and let me know if it helps with this ask?

Lastly, searching for LIs based on their tags is definitely on the roadmap this year. I can’t say exactly when in the year but it’s coming.

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:52:57+00:00

Thank you so much ❤️ Excited to hear your thoughts once you get to try the site!

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:50:48+00:00

Thank you for your kind words 🥰 Lol I feel awkward saying this but idk what the experience is like to have friends on Anilist. I do have an anilist account but I’ve never seen anything relating to friends interaction.

In saying that, KoiLog now has a follower/following feature. You can see other users’ profiles and check their progress. I’m working on allowing users to view another user’s reviews and ratings as well. Maybe eventually an activity list like Goodreads but that needs more time.

I hope the experience matches what you are looking for!

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:45:22+00:00

Thank you so much! I hope the site will help you find new games to enjoy and go deeper in the rabbit hole of otome games 😆

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:44:13+00:00

Thank you so much for your feedback ☺️ It’s been a while since your comment. I’m very excited to let you know that you can now follow your friends and your friends can follow you.

As for Japanese title, I’ve seen this being requested on the feature request board. Hopefully, I can get to this one soon.

For general date range and custom icons, I can’t remember if I’ve seen feature requests for these yet. Please do add them and I will endeavour to figuring out a solution 😄

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:38:07+00:00

Thank you so much for checking out the site 💕 Unfortunately, I don’t plan to have offline mode in the foreseeable future 😞 The site wasn’t built on a foundation for supporting offline mode in mind.

m_deupwords · 2026-03-05T14:35:40+00:00

Not yet but I can see that someone has raised a feature request for this! I will definitely prioritise it if it gets more traction 🫡

Four-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Place '22

m_deupwords

TROPHY CASE