How to Render Tonal Values

Tonal Values of a Sphere

Every artist must know how to render tonal values; it is an essential skill of trade.

In this video, you will find out how to sculpt a sphere and draw it from life with the necessary knowledge of tonal values terminology.

All tonal values can be divided into three groups:

1. Lights
2. Mid-tones
3. Shadows

For example, a sphere may have the highlight, next to which is light and a bit further away is local light.

Mid-tones can be subdivided into the light half-tone, middle half-tone, and dark half-tone.

And when it comes to shadows, the accent is the darkest, the core shadow is where very little light hits the object, and the form shadow is lighter because reflected light influences this tonal value.

In turn, the cast shadow consists of penumbra and umbra. Umbra is the darker place of the cast shadow and penumbra is a diffused cast shadow.

This terminology is not absolute. In some books, you may find other names or even a different number of tonal values. Nevertheless, whichever convention you adopt, it will have the same principles that light is lighter than mid-tones, and mid-tones are lighter than shadows.

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