In case anyone missed my comment on the final inktober, I was planning to take the weekend off then get back into working on rendering (in grayscale) my favorites among them and the most favorited among them.

Somehow, my landscape study was tied as the most popular, so I decided to use it as a values study too.

My notes for this are as follows:
1. I'm rusty as hell. Last time I worked in grayscale was back when I used to do pencil art. I haven't done this in like 8 years and I feel rusty like I've lost so much of my eye for it
2. I tried a few different things, including copying a grayscale version of the ref, but the grassy hill part just looks so glossy. I tried adding grass texture, I tried different soft brushes, I tried the airbrush, I tried hard brushes. Ultimately, I think my value range is too broad, but it perfectly matches the min and max values on my reference, so it must be my ratio of values or the gradients between them. Maybe I'll fix it, but for now I'm just gonna trust the process. This was the result of about an hour of work. Still gonna keep progression slow -- 30-60mins per day so I don't burn myself out. Surprisingly, the min and max values were almost identical to my ref on my first try for it
3. Not happy with the bush. Played around with a few different techniques for texturing leaves with different brushes, eventually gave up and used a leaf stamp. Still not happy, but I really don't want to do anything more at this stage. I'll probably revisit it later if I'm motivated. I need to trust the process more on this one. I feel like it needs to be darker, but it also is very dark already. IDK I have to trust the process more