ThereIsNoJustice's Sketchbook

[ThereIsNoJustice]

I feel like you just need to hit a bit more the dark and white spot just to create more interest and texture in the character. When you smash the value and leave a lot of the extremity of the value range out you get what i call ''sad value'' which you loose the richness the drama and the opportunity to create strong visual hierarchy. Smashing the value ( or taking working mostly with midtone) you create muted interest you make everything equally important to a degree.

By adding the hotspot(or highlight) you create some warmth and with a bit more dark inside the shadow you separate the figure from the background even more not that important here but sometime if you don't light properly loose the figure to the background when you don't create a ''1,2,3'' read as scott robertson would say. The hotspot also suggest the wetness/greasiness of the skin.

I also tried to see what this approach would do with the girl butt to see if it was a one time thing and i think you should consider what being said seriously in that one the form was getting lost in the background.

I think you're right. The diffuse light value got too high in that portrait, and the highlights especially could've been stronger.

The butt painting I think is a better experiment with controlling the value range. It looks good to me, at least. Of course, all this stuff is a matter of preference to some degree...