Step up your digital game with custom brushes!

By: Katie Hearns

Happy Tuesday! This week we are going to go into different brushes you can use to improve your digital painting, inking and drawing. The two programs I use for digital art are Photoshop and Clip Studio. These programs come pre loaded with a default brush set, Clip Studio’s is a bit more diverse with its simulated real world materials like Ink nibs, watercolor and oil paints and pencils. Despite these programs already having brushes to use and there being settings to customize these brushes to your hearts content you may just want to try some different options for brushes.

There two things to consider when looking for new brushes: are the brushes free or paid for and are they for Clip Studio or Photoshop. You cant use Photoshop brushes in Clip Studio or vice versa so pay attention to what programs the brushes you find are compatible with. In terms of finding free brushes there are a lot of options. Simply googling “photoshop brushes” or “manga studio brushes” will yield a ton of results. Some of them will be helpful and some not as much. Deviantart tends to have a lot of brushes that are free to use so that’s a good place to check. You can also search for specific brushes such as halftone brushes, fur or texture brushes, and more.

When you start looking at brushes to pay for you do get a higher quality of brush. The two high quality brush makers are Kyle Webster for Photoshop and Ray Frenden for Clip Studio. Simply googling their names will show you the websites for where to acquire the brushes. Kyle Webster recently changed the way his brushes are distributed for they are now only accessible with an Adobe Creative Cloud license. Luckily for SCAD Students, we have access to these brushes through our student licenses. Being able to access all of Kyle’s brushes for no additional fee is a great resource that is worth taking advantage of.

Ray Frenden’s brushes are just as impressive however to use his brushes you must purchase his brushes in packs with prices from $5-15 which is very affordable given the amount of brushes he includes. He also occasionally updates the packs for no additional charge! Pay attention to the software requirements for the brushes as he offers brushes for Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, and Manga Studio 4. You can buy the megapack for all of his Clip Studio Brushes or if you want to buy a specific pack you can do so as well.

Personally I like to experiment with different materials all the time with my work and the same goes for digital brushes. I have tried both Frenden’s and Kyle’s brushes and I can attest to their quality. I find myself using Frenden’s Inking Brushes more frequently just due to my preference to Clip Studio but I recommend giving both a try.

#tutorial #digitalart #brushes