custom brush tips

8/7/2019 Custom Brush Tips

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Artist insight Custom brush tips

79March 2007

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Workshops

March 2007

If you dont save your preset, it will bereset when you switch to a different brush

1 GRAPHICTABLET SETTINGSOften, poor brush performance iscaused by tablet settings. Occasionally,artists with newly acquired tablets willassume they just plug in the tablet andtheyre ready to go. This is not the case.To get the best performance out ofyour brushes, make sure you run yourtablet drivers, and adjust the settingsof your tablet that best fit yourpersonal stroke and style.

3 COMMONLY USEDBRUSHES PROVIDEDBY PHOTOSHOPIf youre not in the mood for creatingyour own custom brushes and justwant to get right down to painting, youcan always rely on one of Photoshopsmost commonly used libraries. TheNatural Brushes are a set of brusheswhich have already been customisedby Photoshop and provide a goodsense of traditional painting strokes.

4 CUSTOMISING BRUSHESSometimes people wonder why theirbrushes arent reacting to the pressuresensitivity of their tablet. Well, a fewadjustments need to be made first.To access your brush settings go intoPhotoshops Window menu and selectBrushes. A new window will appearwith several setting options and sliders.Experiment with these settings for awhile to get an idea of how they work.

5 SAVING CUSTOMISED BRUSHESOnce youre satisfied with the modifications toa brush you can save it by going to your BrushPreset Picker , clicking the little black arrow inthe upper right corner, and then clicking NewBrush Preset . Keep in mind if you dont save thepreset of your custom brush, it will be reset todefault when you switch to a different brush.

6 POPULAR BRUSH SETTINGSA commonly used brush is the Hard Round brush with theOpacity Jitter set to Pen Pressure. Access your Hard Roundbrushs setting, click on Other Dynamics, then change theOpacity Jitter to Pen Pressure . You can also go a stepfurther and set the Flow Jitter to Pen Pressure as well.

2 PHOTOSHOPS BRUSH LIBRARIES To access Photoshops brush libraries youll need to open the Brush PresetPicker. Select the brush tool, then just right click on the canvas. Now, on theBrush Preset window click the little black arrow on the upper right corner.You will now see a list of Photoshops different brush sets at the bottom ofthe dropdown window. Load up some sets and explore for a while .

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12 WHY CREATE BRUSHES?Custom created brushes are excellent for illustratingdetail, textures and repetitive elements in a very shortamount of time. Lets say you want to create a flock ofbats . You could spend several hours creating each bat or,you could create a bat brush that can make an entireflock in a few simple strokes .

8 SHAPE FEATURESTo adjust the thickness of your brush,use the Diameter slider. To adjust theangle of brush, use Angle andRoundness settings. To get harder or

softer edges, use the Hardness slider.To break up the smoothness of the line,adjust the Spacing slider. Occasionallyyoull find some brushes that lag.Adjusting the Spacing is a good wayreduce the amount of lagging.

9 SHAPE DYNAMICSShape Dynamics enables you tocontrol the shape of your brush bythe amount of pressure, tilt and so on,of your stylus. For instance, if you want

to control the thickness of the line bythe amount of pressure applied toyour stylus you can adjust the MinimumDiameter to 0 per cent and set the SizeJitter to Pen Pressure. The harder youpress, the thicker the line.

10 USING THE TILT FEATUREThis feature is found in Shape Dynamics. It works best withbrushes that have oblong shapes. Just tilt your stylus and moveit in the direction in which the tip is pointed. This will lead yourbrush with either its wide surface or thin surface (dependingon the shape of the created brush).

11 CREATING BRUSHESFROM SCRATCHCreate a black and white or greyscale image onyour canvas (maybe a sketch , some weird linesor objects , even a photo .) Once you have yourimage, give it a tight crop, adjust to 72dpi andkeep the size range small to avoid using toomuch memory and lagging. Go PhotoshopsEdit menu and click Define Brush Preset .

Your new brush is now in your library.

7 BRUSH TEXTURESFrom your brush library you can add the textures to yourbrushes. Go into Photoshops Window menu and selectBrushes, then click on Texture . Now just select the desiredtexture from sample window, which previews the currentlyselected texture. After you have selected a texture you canadjust the Depth and Scale using the sliders provided.

13 BAT BRUSH SAMPLECreate a sketch of a couple of bats in flight .Make the image into a brush. Go into OtherDynamics and set controls to Pen Pressure.Go to Brush Tip Shape, activate the Spacingand move the slider to 30 per cent. SetScattering to 137 per cent. Go to ShapeDynamics and set Angle Jitter to 11 per cent.

If you find brushes that lag,adjusting the Spacing is a goodway to reduce the lagging

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18 SAVING A LIBRARYOF BRUSHESPretty soon youll find that you havecreated your own custom library ofbrushes and you may want to savethem. You can easily save your brushesby opening Photoshops Brush Presetpicker, clicking the little black arrow onthe upper right hand corner and thenselecting Save Brushes.

16 TECHNIQUES 1When using these new brushes try experimenting with everyaspect. For example, create a rocky hill with your Rock brushthen turn your Rock brush into an eraser and cut into your hill tocreate more interesting shapes. Create a Scattered Leaves brush,then use it to create a Leaves On A Branch brush, then use theLeaves On A Branch brush to create a Tree brush, and so on.

14 CLOUD BRUSHSketch out a puff of smoke .Create a brush from it. Go toOther Dynamics and changethe Opacity Jitter and FlowJitter to Pen Pressure. Nowgo to Shape Dynamics andchange Size Jitter to PenPressure , set the Angle Jitter,Roundness Jitter andMinimum Roundness toabout 30 per cent, thenturn on your Flip X Jitterand Flip Y Jitter.15 PALETTE KNIFECreate a very thin vertical oval andmake a new brush. Now, go to OtherDynamics and change to Opacity Jitterto Pen Pressure. Go to Shape Dynamicsand set everything to 0 per cent. SetAngle Jitter Control to Pen Tilt. Nowyouve got a Palette Knife. It takes alittle bit of practice to control theAngle feature with your stylus though.

20 ROCK BRUSHUse this to quickly create rocky mountains . Sketch

an image of a rock and convert it into a brush. In OtherDynamics, set Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter to PenPressure. In Shape Dynamics, change Size Jitter to PenPressure at 60 per cent. Angle Jitter at 40 per cent,Roundness Jitter at 100 per cent, Minimum Diameterat 20 per cent, and Flip X jitter and Flip Y jitter on.

17 TECHNIQUES 2Improvise and use some of the tips above tocreate some textured brushes. Use tip 13 andsubstitute the bats with speckles of dirt andgrit . A Speckled Dirt And Grit brush wouldcome in handy in creating a Rock brush.

19 LOADING A LIBRARYTo load a library just access the Brush

Preset picker, click the little arrow onthe upper right hand corner, then clickLoad Brushes. Saving and loadingbrushes comes in very handy whenyou are going to be working on morethan one computer. You can easily saveyour brushes on a small flash drive andload them on to any computer.

Saving and loading brushescomes in handy when workingon more than one computer

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ONLINE RESOURCESAND FURTHER INFOCheck out these websites, DVDs and books tofind out more about customising your brushes

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21 ORGANISING YOUR LIBRARYSometimes you may feel like your brush library is a bitmessy. You might want to rearrange some brushes orjust delete some of them. To organise your brushes justaccess your Brush Preset picker, click that little blackarrow again, and then click Preset Manager . You can

now drag brushes to your desired order.

You can find other information on customising and creatingbrushes by exploring around the internet or by visitingdiscussion forums on some of the more popular digital artsites such as imaginefx.com , cgtalk.com , conceptart.org ,and gfxartist.com . You can also check out someinstructional DVDs that are available at

thegnomonworkshop.com . One particular DVD, FromSpeedpainting to Concept Art by David Levy, has a wealthof information on customising and creating brushes.

For books on the subject you can try Digital CharacterDesign and Painting by Don Seegmiller Photoshop CSedition (ISBN 1584502320). Along with custom brushbuilding, Digital Character Design and Painting also has tipson the basics of colour, values, textures and so on.

24 MAKING UNIQUE BRUSHESAlthough Ive shared some very basic tips on making andcustomising brushes, the best way to really learn about itis to experiment and explore . There are huge numbers ofbrush setting combinations and limitless amounts of brushesthat can be created from your own imagination .

25 CUSTOM BRUSHARTWORK SAMPLEThis image was created with severalcustom brushes. A Texture brush forthe speckles on the rocks, a Girderbrush for the girders around the rubble,a Cloud brush for the clouds and dust,a brush that creates lights on thebuildings, a Palette Knife for some ofthe highlight cuts in the rubble, anda Rain brush for the rain effects.

22 BRUSH SHORTCUTSIf youre using a brush and need accessthe colour picker, instead of going toyour toolbar just hold down Alt/Option

and your brush automatically becomesa colour picker. Release Alt/Option andyour brush is back. Need to create astraight vertical or horizontal line? Justhold down Shift, and your line will behorizontal or vertical.

23 MORE SHORTCUTSNeed a straight line other than verticalor horizontal? On your canvas make adot with your brush, then hold Shift

and create another dot. A line is nowconnected to both points. Need tochange the diameter for your brush?Just tap the [ for smaller size or ] forlarger size. To adjust the Flow justclick a number on your number pad.

You can create limitless amountsof brushes from your imagination

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