Values! Revisit and feedback

I recently got feedback and a paint over on my last post!

The feedback was very useful and has made me positive looking forward to working on my values. 
LESS IS MORE!!
Something I was told to think of was to try and think more simple with shapes. I shouldn't be afraid to be bold, I think I need to learn to trust my instincts and knowledge and not to just be a slave to the reference. Something I know I need to do is to slow down and my rushing is really shown in my last piece. The fear of being slow and coming across as unproductive is something I let go in this revisit to this exercise. You have to go slow to go quick.
Something I need to do is to recheck the angles. The values wont matter until the angles are captured. This is because it wont read and will be incorrect.

What I did differently?

Backgrounds! I added a value to the background to make the piece standout. 

I took my time! I analysed the reference for a few minutes instead of jumping straight in, I really thought about the angles a lot more and I put in a lot more plum lines and really checked more and more. 

I played with the levels and thought about the structure and relationship between the values. 

HOWEVER, feedback I got on this piece was that I should of changed the shades I used for values on each of the pieces instead of using the same shades. I will apply it for later pieces and leave this behind so I can use it to reflect. 

For this piece, i just wanted to keep experimenting like the way I had been. This one was slightly more rushes as you can probably tell by the shadow shapes. The constant want to use soft edges and to blend is unreal! But I shouldn't rely on it. This one was more complicated with more complicated shadow shapes in the hair. But i tried to make it more simple but it didn't translate well. I feel like I could of exaggerated the darker shade a lot more. 

This is my final value piece for this week. This one I had worked on, on and off, for two days. I worked on the line work for a while (which i stupidly ended up loosing because I've been so used to working on one layer for years I'm trying to break out of that habit) I was really really trying to get the accuracy, but where I failed was with the shadow shapes. I also wanted to work on a piece that also had clothing folds in it to try and capture different form rather then facial structure. 

The top darker piece took me the longest, I think this is because of the darker values means the shapes are more prominent and harsh and a lot more noticeable when you make the slightest of difference.  

The second piece was a journey in itself since I originally chose a much darker colour that matched closer to the background, but then really really make the figure look really awkward adding the darker value, and only having the light and the middle value made the piece look flat, especially against the dark background. So, I changed the third value to a lighter one that had better relationships with the values on the figure.

I think I will keep practising and studying values, I want to move on to 5 values and possibly try out 2 values. If anyone has any tips, tricks, or crit feel free to leave me a comment!