All right so in this lecture we're going to talk about brushes which is probably one of the most common
things people ask me and surprisingly and honestly enough is really one of the least important things
are sort of something that people like hearing a lot but if you're putting so much effort and concern
into your brushes that that's kind of like your main excuse for not making art then you're doing it
wrong.
OK.
Because really if you don't have the fundamentals down and you don't know how to paint and draw on your
own then no amount of brushes are going to change that.
Sometimes it seems to be that people think that the reason their art doesn't look good is because they
don't have the same brushes as the artists I admire.
But that's really rarely the case.
There's very few instances where you just have to have a right brush in order for something to look
good.
OK.
But as long as you don't print as a main focus we can talk about brushes.
So anyways we're going to go over it.
Just remember that it's not about the brush right it's about your skills.
A great artist can.
They can make great art with just about any brush cape.
That being said I'm going to go over what brushes I like to use because honestly there's no such thing
as necessarily the right or the wrong brush.
You can use whatever you're most comfortable with and which is what I recommend you do.
You might be you might have been using the same brush for a really long time and when you try and use
one of the brushes I recommend it just makes the art look worse because you're not as familiar with
how to use it.
Well then just keep using your brush that you normally use if that's what's getting you the better results
because like I talked about before it really all that matters is how it looks in the end right.
You're making art and it just matters.
Does it look good.
So I'm going to go over the brush.
So if you're in pro-create This is after a pro-create for the new update.
So that's why things look a little bit different from the pencil.
I use a modified pencil it's called that pencil it's actually a pencil that was created by Mike Henry
on YouTube.
He uses pro-create a lot and really it's really simple I'll show you how to make it.
So if you're in pro-create we're going to talk about it for a second here and then we'll talk about
you photoshop people here in a second.
But for a long time pro-create you had a slide at the top to get your other brushes and I would use
a charcoal block brush sometimes and people would say oh I don't have that brush.
Where can I get it.
And I would tell them yes you do have it it's in pro-create comes with pro-create but they didn't know
you could slide to other brushes so both brushes that I really use for sketching are ones that come
standard in perkier.
I just modified them a little bit so the technical pencils one.
If you slide any of them over to the left you can hit duplicate and create a new pencil.
Then if you click on it you have all of these settings here.
OK.
They can go through really the best way to learn how to use brushes to just go around and mess with
these and learn how to use them.
What I did and honestly what a lot of other artists do but this is going to be what we want to edit
here.
OK.
So let's fine make sure we have the right setting here.
And find this one hope this one so different now that they've changed.
I mean for real.
OK.
So it's under general that's what we're looking for.
So the technical pen so we go under general and I all I did super simple arrays the maximum to about
20 percent give or take 20 point 9:21.
Right.
And this just makes it so that at its widest it can get really thick and thin.
It will stay really thin.
So you could see when I draw now and sort of just a normal technical pencil which we can compare it
to.
So this is the original Thick as it ever gives.
No matter how hard I push is like that yearly thing.
But it doesn't really get that much thicker.
And when we use a modified one and get even more thicker and I think on mine I even made a little bit
thicker than that but you know like I said it's whatever you're comfortable with.
So we're going to leave that when we don't need anymore.
The other one I use a lot is just a variation of the round brush.
So this is a normal round brush and this is for what I'm sketching really large right.
So I'll start out with a really big brush and are really loosely and roughly a block in the different
shapes that I'm thinking of in my head.
Right.
Something like this.
Right.
Super glue super rough.
OK.
And and then what I'll do is I'll make a new layer or just raise the Apache on the brush and.
And then just paint over that and lower the brush size so it be like this.
Then I would lower this down.
Whoops.
Let's look at that.
You can see what I'm talking about really quick.
I blow it way down really low.
Laura my Russian is a little bit bring up the opacity.
Right.
So it going in a little bit more to find something like that.
Right.
And I know it's slow.
Just keep doing this starting with a really loose.
Right.
I tend do this one is going to be more of like a painterly sketch than a draw sketch.
Right.
This is kind of more like paint sketching which is fine you could totally do that with a different style
and the brush is what I use to do that.
However this brush just the way it is now when I get small isn't really going to give me that sort of
line weight variation that I want.
So I went ahead and edited the brush so Ron brushes typically like this are going to make a new one
and I'll show you what the edited version is like.
And we made it so that the let's go to I believe it's under pencil.
OK.
So either the Apaches or doesn't get quite so opaque on the ends because Instead I'd rather have it
taper.
OK.
And I raise the size so that this means that the harder I push the bigger it will get.
OK.
So if we go back now and paint with it we could see instead of fading off and getting less opaque is
mad it just gets thinner.
Right.
So then I can make a new layer if we lower the opacity on this one and lower razy opacity lower the
size even more then it gives me a pretty decent sketch brush that I like to work with that I can just
progressively make smaller and smaller and Talmuds exactly where I want it to be size wise.
And I would just keep working it just like that using this brush.
Some mostly skipped stuff though.
I use a pencil on and really.
And of all the sketching brushes I use those are the only two ones that I really use a lot.
Sometimes if I'm wanting to do big huge blocks of color at once I use a truckle black brush which is
under charcoals completely unmodified just exactly how it is.
I think it has a good texture and it works fine for me.
I like using that should also be noted that if you're in pro-create I'm not sure if this is if it works
as well if you're honest antique but if you're an pro-create with the Apple Pencil you're drawing with
a pencil brush and you turn your brush sideways your stylus you can kind of fade like this and get that
pretty nice effect by holding your pencil to the side instead of just straight up and down.
So that's a pretty cool effect.
I keep that in mind so that's it for pro-create brushes.
If you're not and pro-create though like say you're in Photoshop or something that uses Photoshop brushes
there are tons and tons and tons of free sketch brushes out there.
Here's one that I found that I thought works pretty good.
These are by Johnny six so if you just go to Johnny 6:37 or dot com and then look for his sketch tactic
bresh pack then you'll be able to use any of these they are all free they're free to download.
You do need a tablet so that you can use their pressure sensitivity settings.
Yeah.
You have a whole bunch or you can do digital cross-hatching that it is already done for you more of
like a squatter effect they have shading and then they have ones that just look like you're drawing
with a pencil.
But you know like I said before in all honesty it's not really about the brush as much as it is about
learning the skills.
Right.
Because if you really have a solid understanding of the fundamentals then you'll be able to more intuitively
know what brush you need for what job and you'll be able to get a lot more done with one brush because
honestly when I even when I'm doing a full finished complete painting all I really use that much is
the pencil brush sometimes the charcoal brush.
And then like airbrush soft airbrush and it's really just a variation of those ones.
To be honest there are just different sizes and opacity so you can do a lot of the brushes you have.
These are the ones I use and when it comes to sketching just one last tip when it comes to sketching.
Really all you want are you really need at least for the style I sketch in is to have a brush that can
get thinner and thicker.
That's really it.
So if you find a brush that you really like the texture anything about it then all you really have to
do.
Like let's say you really like the nico nico rule buff brush but you can come in here go to general
and change the minimum max size limit and then go to pencil and change the size so that it gets bigger
and smaller and the opacity.
So it doesn't fade off as much.
And then you can use that brush instead.
Right.
So you can use a brush you just want to make sure that it's giving you that sort of that size variance.
You can get the line away right because when you're drawing uniform it tends to kind of look tacky unless
unless you're really trained in how to draw that.
I'll show you an example.
Let's use the gel pen and let's make sure that there's no size variance at all.
It's wanted to be completely uniform all the way through.
So when you're drawing with this gel pen for example it's kind of hard to really get any sort of I guess
expression through the line because it's all completely uniform right now almost looks like those Saturday
morning cartoons with like Charlie Brown.
Right.
It just doesn't look that great.
But having just a little bit of size variance can make it so that has a little bit more expression to
it.
So you see already makes a big difference and it would be a lot easier to sketch with this approach
than it would.
The other one that was just flat right.
Because this gives us a little bit more to work with.
Right.
We're not so confined to that one straight line.
So if you're making your own brush which I totally recommend find something that you think is like your
perfect sketch brush idea making own brush just remember and you're going to be sketching with it as
long as it has some size variance.
It's going to work and you want to make sure that it doesn't have opacity that falls off.
Right.
You want to make sure that this setting is turned down to the middle at 0 percent because if you have
it like this where it falls off in the end of all of your lines are kind of going to disappear when
you didn't quite want them to yet.
So like if you're drawing something all see how the teeth like they just start to disappear every time
I pick up my pencil.
Right.
You don't want that you just want to get thinner right.
You don't want the line to disappear.
So that's my recommendation for brushes.
I know that's kind of it can be difficult to create your own brushes with lots of great controls out
there.
But if you do have questions ask in the you know the Facebook group or in the to me question in the
Q&A section and I'll do my best to help you out the brushes.
But like I said brushes I'm going to make you an amazing artist.
Lots of hard work and practice are so upset for this lecture.
I'll see you guys in the next one.