- Use the Format Painter on the Home tab to quickly apply the same formatting, such as color, font style and size, and border style, to multiple pieces of text or graphics. The format painter lets you copy all of the formatting from one object and apply it to another one – think of it as copying and pasting for formatt.
- Transfer your imagination to canvas with the Princeton snap! You get 4 White Taklon paintbrushes in this set including a 3/4-Inch angle shader and size 0, size 2, and size 6 round brushes. With White Taklon bristles on each brush, they are suitable for acrylic and watercolor pictures.
- The Sensu Brush is the ultimate tool for digital artists. It delivers an authentic painting experience on your tablet or smartphone. The Sensu portable artist brush & stylus works great for capacitive touchscreens like iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire, Google Nexus S, and other devices.
Hi guys! I’ve been searching the internet for some digital painting brushes that will imitate the traditional brushes – and other tools used in traditional art. I managed to find really great brushes that nowadays are the main set in my “brush palette”.
Check out TheOwlcan's art on DeviantArt. Browse the user profile and get inspired. Limiting yourself to a handful of useful, versatile, brushes is the best way to approach digital painting. Even though I’ve been painting for years, the three following brushes are used for 90% of my painting. Hard round – This has a circular head and a sharp edge. It’s the most useful brush in all of photoshop.
Check them out and download your favorite brushes!
In this article, I gathered awesome brushes that can be used in Photoshop. But in the future, I’m going to create similar lists to other graphic software.
As a student, I didn’t have any money, so my obvious choice was to search for free brushes published by the creators (mostly on DeviantArt) with permission for free use.
My main goal was to gather some nice tools that will allow me to create digital paintings imitating the visual effect of traditional paintings – you know, the texture of paper and canvas, the visible use of a bristle brush… that was something I couldn’t achieve easily with the use of Photoshop’s default brushes. The brushes are free to use, but if you plan to use them for your commercial projects, I recommend to contact the artist first, to have a clear situation.
Below you can find a list of free digital brushes for Photoshop used by professional illustrators/concept artists.
Maciej Kuciara digital brushes
Download Maciej Kuciara brushes
Artist: Maciej Kuciara | visit Maciej’s website
Maciej Kuciara is one of my idols and people I look up to. His skills, and especially his background made me realize that no matter what are your obstacles – if you are really passionate about things that you do and work hard to achieve your goals, you can do this.
He worked as a concept artist for such projects like: The Last of Us, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ghost in the Shell.
I was hyper happy when I found out that Maciej published his set of brushes for free download. Here’s Maciej’s comment on brushes:
Here’s a full set of brushes I use, used or might use in my works, most of it I gathered over last few years. Some of the brushes you’ll find in this set I’ve adopted from other artist sets, including: Jaime Jones, Mathias Verhasselt, Danny LuVisi, Shaddy Safadi and more. Feel free to do whatever you like with them, I feel like it’s one of few ways I can contribute to our artists community.
Darek Zabrocki’s digital brushes
Download Darek Zabrocki’s digital brushes
Artist: Darek Zabrocki | visit Darek Zabrocki’s website
Darek Zabrocki in a professional concept artist from Gdansk, Poland. He worked in such project as NEED FOR SPEED (2020), WITCHER 3 WILD HUNT: BLOOD & WINE, ASSASSIN’S CREED: SYNDICATE and many other projects.
Noah Bradley’s digital brushes
Download Noah Bradley digital brushes
Artist: Noah Bradley | visit Noah Bradley’s website
Noah Bradley is an illustrator and a founder of “Art Camp”- an online art course. Noah Bradley worked on such projects as The Sin of Man, and created an illustration for Magic: The Gathering
Loish’ digital brushes
Download Loish’ digital brushes
Artist: Loish | visit Loish’ website
Grzegorz Rutkowski Photoshop Brushes
Download Grzegorz Rutkowski’s Digital brushes
Download Grzegorz Rutkowski’s digital brushes
Artist: Grzegorz Rutkowski | visit Grzegorz Rutowski’s website
AaronGriffinArt digital brushes
Download AaronGriffin’s digital brushes
Artist: AaronGriffin | visit AaronGriffin’s website
Sakimichan digital brushes
Download Sakimichan’s digital brushes
Artist: Sakimichan | visit Sakimichan’s website
Jonas De Ro’s digital brushes
Download Jonas Ro’s digital brushes
Artist: Jonas De Ro | visit Jonas De Ro’s website
Houston Sharp’s digital brushes
Download Jonas Ro’s digital brushes
Artist: Houston Sharp | visit Houston Sharp’s website
Digital Paintbrush Oculus
Mac Smith’s digital brushes
Download Mac Smith’s digital brushes
Artist: Mac Smith | visit Mac Smith’s website
Wangjie Li digital Brushes
Download Wangije Li’s digital brushes
Artist: Wangije Li | visit Wangije Li’s website
Rafał Górniak aka Rav89’s digital brushes
Download Rav89’s digital brushes
Artist: Rafał Górniak aka RaV89 | visit Rafał Górniak’s website
Michael Guimont aka Wavenwater’s digital brushes
Download Wavenwater’s digital brushes
Artist: Michael Guimont | visit Michael Guimont’s website
Przemysław aka Env1ro digital brushes
Artist: Env1ro | visit Env1ro’s website
Przemysław aka Env1ro has created many amazing brushes which you can find on his Deviantart’s page.
If you like his work, you can donate a few dollars:
Please donate via Paypal using p.szczepanski@gmail.com email. I will be really appreciated!
PaintLines contains 24 HQ brushes (resolution about 2500px) brushes compatible with PS 7 and up!
LilithDemoness digital brushes
Download LilithDemoness’ digital brushes
Artist: LilithDemoness | visit LilithDemoness’ website
Oprócz możliwości korzystania z podstawowych zestawów pędzli, kształtów, wzorów czy innych dodatków, możesz zainstalować również własne, pobrane, np. z Internetu.
There are several ways to import brushes to Photoshop – it may vary depending on which version of Photoshop do you use. Follow the step below to import your brushes.
- How to import Photoshop Brushes
- Download the brushes. If it’s a zip file, unpack it first.
- Go to Window ->Brush presets (You can also open the Brushes panel flyout menu)
- Click the icon (or the icon in you are using the brushes panel the flyout menu) to see more options
- Select Load Brushes… option
- A new window will pop-up. Locate your brushes and select them.
- Click Load
- Your new brushes are now added to the Brush Presets window (you can find them at the end of the list).
- Enjoy your new brushes!
How do you get Photoshop brushes?
With the installation of Photoshop, you automatically get also a set of default brushes which you can use for free. You can also import new brushes – the ones created for free by artists or purchase a pack of professional brushes.
All you need to do is to download them and follow the steps from “How to Install & Use Photoshop Brushes” part of the article.
You can also create your own brushes. To learn how to create a digital brush in photoshop visit this article: How to create a brush in Photoshop
What brushes to use in Photoshop?
It depends on what project are you working. The most commonly used brush is the round brush (from the Photoshop default set basic brushes). You can easily modify it to fit your needs in the Brush settings
For more sophisticated effect, use the Dry media, Thick Heavy and wet media brushes set – they imitate the traditional painting media. That are free brush sets in Photoshop to which you should have an access.
Where do I download photoshop brushes?
There are various sites on the internet where you can download brushed for free. One of the largest sites with such resources is Deviantart – you can check out digital brushes on Deviantart here.
Please go to the Sites – here you can find other free digital painting brushes part, to see more sites.
Where do I find brush presets in Photoshop?
Brush presets is an option in Photoshop, where you can view your actual brushes. To open Brush presets, go to the Window and select brush presets.
Remember, it’s not the brush that matters it’s what you do with it!
Do you know any awesome brushes that should be listed here? Let me know in the comments!
Special thanks to Wacom for sponsoring this episode! If you’re looking for a gift this holiday season for you or an artist in your life check out Wacom One tablet. There are links to it below along with other excellent tablets from Wacom.
Wacom One
Wacom Cintiq 22
Wacom Intuos
Hi guys! My name is Tayler Olivas. I am a landscape painter, concept artist, and educator currently working in the game industry, most recently at Tar Pit Studios with Scott Flanders as some of you guys might already be familiar with. I would like to share with you some of the shortcuts I use for my own digital painting process.
Coming from a traditional background, I have had to make adjustments in my workflow when it comes to creating evocative images in a digital format, and I’ve found several “shortcuts” that I use in my own workflow today. I will show how to think simply with basic forms, then compound that to create a convincing image!
I think it’s important to consider that a tool only works as well as the person using it. In all, having good fundamental skills should allow you to thrive regardless of the media you choose. In the book Alla Prima, Richard Schmidt said that if Michelangelo had only been equipped with a broom and a bucket of mud, the Sistine Chapel would have still been the master piece that it is today. Frazetta has also been known to use cheap Mickey Mouse watercolor sets ; however, it is easier to paint the Sistine chapel or barbarians with a proper brush and paints.
Alright, so let’s dive into it!
Again, I understand some of the frustrations that come with creating a painting from scratch in a digital format. Some of the first pieces of artwork that I’ve actually made have been through acrylic, watercolor, oil, and charcoal. Finding a way to ease myself into this new medium took many years, so hopefully these simple steps will help to make you more comfortable in this workspace.
Setting up your workspace for the first time
Personally, I hate dealing with tons of menus in my workspace impeding my ability to create. If you are completely new to photoshop and you are using the Wacom One, when you first start up Photoshop your user interface will have a lot of menus automatically open. To me this is way too cluttered of a space to work in, and some of these menus I honestly never even touch. When I paint I only navigate through certain panels. So I’ll show how I set up mine .
Simple is good!
Digital Paint Brush Stylus
The first step is to create a “New Workspace” by clicking on the Workspace icon in the top right corner.
Once you’ve done that you can arrange your panels for optimal performance.
- Dock the “Layers” panel on the left hand side and the “Color” panel on the right.
- The last panel you need is the “Brushes” panel. To get this or any other panel simply click on the Window tab at the top of the screen and find the panel you want. Now that your “Brushes” panel is on your workspace, simply click and drag it to the bottom of your “Color” panel.
Tools
Now that we’ve got a workspace that’s comfortable for us to work in I’d like to overview some of the tools I use.
Selection: A lot of my process revolves around me finding ways to create strong graphic shapes from the very start. The best way that I have found to achieve that is to use different selection tools within Photoshop. The four primary selection tools I use are the Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, Rectangular Marquee, Elliptical Marquee. The next thing you’ll want to do is assign each of those selection tools keyboard shortcuts. Make sure when you set these up you choose keys that are close to where your hand rests on your keyboard so they are easily accessible. Just like in computer games, the closer your keyboard shortcuts are to your hand, the more efficient you will be.
Move Canvas: Another great tool I use is “Move Canvas”. You can easily use this tool just by holding your space bar while you click and drag your canvas.
Move selection: Use the shortcut “V” to move selections. If you have multiple layers you can turn on “Auto-Select” in the top left of your screen and now you will be able to move which ever layer is connected to the pixels you click on.
Transform: This tool is used to manipulate selections. Here are a couple good shortcuts to remember.
- Hold Alt while dragging to scale from center point.
- Hold Ctrl while dragging to skew selected point.
Demo 1:
Combining tools together to create a convincing sphere
- Use your selection tool to create a basic circle
- Add a new layer. To do this, right click on the layer and select “Create Clipping Mask”. This will make sure any pixels painted on the top layer will adhere to the shape on the bottom.
- Now we want to add a Layer Mask to your Clipping Mask layer. To do this, select the layer and click the “Add Layer Mask” button at the bottom of your layers panel. This will make it so you are working non destructivly.
- Now we want to create a drop shadow. To do this, make a copy of your circle by holding your Alt key then clicking and dragging on your circle. Now you can use the Transform tool to skew your shape. Now jsut add another Clipping Mask layer to create an Ambient Occlusion.
By keeping everything separated on different layers you can easily go back and make iterations to different parts of your painting. Which helps a lot when you start working on large concepts with a lot of different subject matter.
Brush Stylus Pen
There’s so many different methods of describing form and I think it’s a fun exercise to look at some of the masters who bend the rules a bit to arrive at their own stylistic interpretations of light and shadow.
Digital Paintbrush Software
Brushes
Another helpful trick is to create your own brushes. A lot of what I use when working in digital is actual traditional scans from some of my own painting. They tend to give me a bit of chaos to work in and if you think about happy accident, this is where that starts to occur.In the back of my mind I am thinking about how I can use these types of textures to describe different things in nature. This could be rocks, clouds, skin, freckles or just about anything. I am always thinking about different ways to use these brushes in the future. I definitely recommend trying this out for yourself and seeing how far you can take your own brushes.
Demo 2:
Creating a landscape
Now we can apply some of what we learned to create an actual environment. The point of this exercise is to create something that is little more exaggerated. Hopefully I can capture the essence of actually being at that location and infuse something from that moment of time into this piece that the photograph did not capture.
- I start out with very gestural movements. My goal is to create something that feels similarly balanced yet simple. Its okay to get a little more complex after you are happy with your gesture. This will serve as a sort of roadmap on where I want to go.
- A good trick to create perspective is to use your “Perspective Crop” tool to warp parts off into the background as if they are going off into the vanishing point.
- Im now focusing on creating big masses of shape. Making sure I have a silhouette that is clear and convincing. A good trick is to study the negative shape relatioships.
- Open a “levels Adjustment Layer” and this will let you work on top of the values underneath with creating a different value key. Basically shifting the tones and values underneath. Working in-tandem with the mask to make sure I can come back and iterate if needed in the future.
- Im also always making sure my lighting is consistent which will help create a conniving painting. To help give a sense of perspective I am creating larger shapes in foreground and making sure they get smaller as they go back and overlapping shapes of light and dark
- Now that I have all my lights and darks in place and a simple composition, I will throw in some color to establish a cool atmosphere for the sky and some warms for the rocks.
- I’m using complementary colors of purple and yellows and then playing with some of the grays that exist within those color grouping.
- Even with the introduction of color, my overall light and dark composition has not changed at all. My values and overall structure has remained the consistent.
- Now I can start directly painting over some of those layers and step away from the non destructive method of working. While still thinking about what each layer is doing for me and knowing I can go back and effect these layers is going to be super helpful.
- Using textural elements to create a sense of material for the rocks. Paying close attention to where the terminator exists, I make sure to put a lot of texture between light and dark which helps convey that these are rocks.
- By creating more overlap, its helping to reinforce that perspective a little bit more too. The rocks in the background getting hit with light helps show that things are going off in the distance.
- At this stage in the painting I can start to really experiment with my brushes. I’m trying to figure out what are the main decisions I am going to be making. Like where do the biggest strokes need to be made at this point and should I have most of the detail in my shadows or my lights. Prioritizing for one or the other makes the painting more effective and believable.
- The painting is pretty much done now. The last thing I want to do is exaggerate the form a bit more. To achive this i’ll go back to where the lights meet the darks and create a little bit more contrast.
- Now that we have a finished painting, you can use the Levels or the Black and White adjustment layers to over expose some of the areas and push some of the brights even more.
So that’s it! I hope this has given you that extra boost you needed to jump into digital painting!. If you want to see more of my work, check out my Instagram and my Art Station! And if you’re interested in a personal mentorship, go shoot me a message. I teach at Laguna College of Art and Design and really enjoy helping my students grow and push themselves to their next level and would be happy to help you out too. See you all next time!
Other Digital Painting Lessons:
How to Make Digital Paintings Look Traditional
Top 7 Digital Painting Mistakes
Digitally Painting like a Sculptor
Digital Shape Carving with Scott Flanders
Filed in: Fundamentals • Videos