Posted on Leave a comment

“Dense Weather” Photoshop oil paint brush

Painted using only the "Dense Weather" oil brush
Painted using only the “Dense Weather” oil brush
brush strokes of the dense weather Photoshop oil brush
brush strokes of the dense weather Photoshop oil brush

Here’s another oil brush. I really must put the oils together in a collection. This one has a jagged flower petal pattern shaped brush stroke. It’s a fairly wet diluted brush that can be built up to an opaque coverage. The diluted flow makes blending the surrounding tones together really easy.

This brush is used to best effect by going over and re-working an area to diminish the appearance of the individual strokes and blend the areas together. The distinctive pattern it produces when drawn in a line can be overpowering when not blended but really works to your advantage when re-working an area over a few times as the visible brush strokes maintain a painterly appearance and reduce the likelihood of all the strokes blending together too much and becoming a mushy blur so common with overuse of blender brush tools. If used sparingly you will always be able to maintain the visible strokes that will give your painting an impressionistic and organic feel. 

I hope to do a tutorial on how to best accentuate the oil painting look including adding a canvas texture but for now I’ll just say, paint on an Overlay layer and your background is important. If you watch the video at the bottom of this page, you can see that I paint most of it on an overlay layer, so that the canvas texture shows through the paint. Later, towards the end, I start painting on a normal layer, though with a light touch, to add a more opaque layer of paint in certain areas.

Brush strokes of a digital oil painting done using the Photoshop Oil Brush toolset 'Dense Weather' for digital artists
Brush strokes painted with the ‘Dense Weather’ oil brush

You can download this brush for free until Friday! (expired)

[twocol_one]
Dense Weather - Photoshop Oil Brush
Dense Weather – Photoshop Oil Brush
[/twocol_one] [twocol_one_last]
‘Dense Weather’ Photoshop Oil Brush.
A patchy oil brush with a widely variable flow and a loose frayed edge. With low pressure you get a very diluted low opacity brush for roughing in shapes that quickly converts to crisp layers of built up texture to create nice blended tones.
[button link=”https://www.grutbrushes.com/cart/?add-to-cart=34618″]Add to Cart – $1[/button][/twocol_one_last]

Watch the brush strokes in action

painting live with the ‘Dense Weather’ Photoshop oil brush video is sped up after the beginning.
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

Comparing Pressure Responsive Photoshop brushes to Stamp-style brushes


When I tell people about Grutbrushes they often say “Oh yes, I see tons of watercolor brushes on the web” Chances are they’ve seen the stencil type brushes that are made from a scan of one brush stroke that you can then stamp onto your image. You can achieve some fantastic results with those brushes if used sparingly but the big difference, and it really is big, is that Grutbrushes are dynamic and respond to the speed, pressure and motion of your stylus on your tablet allowing you to actually paint with them and achieve organic lines that resemble traditional media. This video shows a side by side comparison between the free stencil type brushes found all over the net and Grutbrushes pressure responsive watercolour brushes made for digital artists. If you haven’t already, you can download a free watercolor brush here to try it out for yourself.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

Download Free Photoshop Ink Brush for a Share


Rabbit drawing done with “Desk inspector ” Photoshop ink brush from Nicolai on Vimeo.

I am giving away the Desk Inspector Photoshop ink brush to the first 400 people who share below (30+ still available – As of October 25 2015).
[sociallocker id=”32633″] Download it for FREEclick to add to cart and checkout!
When you click the button above, the brush will be added to your cart for free! Then just check out to download your free brush (no need to add a coupon code)[/sociallocker]
If download button doesn’t appear after you share, reload the page.
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

New Charcoal Brush ‘Peel Braiser’

Photoshop charcoal drawing created using 'Pee Braiser' Photoshop brush
Photoshop charcoal drawing created using ‘Pee Braiser’ Photoshop brush
enlarged brush strokes
enlarged brush strokes

This charcoal or chalk brush is more flexible and fungible than some of the more recent brushes in that it is has a very soft fingerprint at low pressure. With a single stroke you get very light coverage which makes shading easy as you can easily control the amount of colour and by building it up with multiple stokes it’s possible to create areas of light colour blend into very dark sections without visible brush strokes. This maintains a sharp texture like you would have with chalk or charcoal on heavy textured paper without the smudginess that you would get using a stump or tortillion in traditional media.

Video of digital charcoal drawing done using the 'Peel Braiser' Photoshop Charcoal Brush toolset
Video of digital charcoal drawing done using the ‘Peel Braiser’ Photoshop Charcoal Brush toolset
[twocol_one]
'Peel Braiser' Photoshop Charcoal Brush for digital artists
‘Peel Braiser’ Photoshop Charcoal Brush for digital artists
[/twocol_one] [twocol_one_last]
Peel Braiser’ Charcoal Brush.
A hard charcoal with a light coverage that makes it ideal for shading with a crisp texture. With repeated strokes this brush can give you full dark coverage with lots of opportunity for graduated blending.
[button link=”https://www.grutbrushes.com/cart/?add-to-cart=31998″]Add to Cart – $1[/button][/twocol_one_last]

Watch the brush strokes in action

Video of drawing done with ‘Peel Braiser’ brush
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

New GrutBrushes Now on Pinterest

GrutBrushes digital artists brushes on pinterest
GrutBrushes digital artists brushes on pinterest

There’s a new way to keep up with the latest Photoshop brushes, the Photoshop brushes board on Pinterest. This is a nice way to keep up to date via your regular Pinterest feed where every new brush will appear shortly after being published in the Brush Shop (which will always be the fastest way to learn about new brushes) where the brushes appear in order of newness.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

Realistic Ballpoint Pens for Photoshop

[twocol_one]

4 Realistic Photoshop ballpoint pen brushes

Together at last! Four realistic ballpoint pens for Photoshop. Pressure responsive and textured to appear like real ballpoint pens, these four Photoshop brush tools mimic fine, medium and broad ballpoint pens as well as a 4th rollerball pen tool that has that tell tale edge of the line ink pooling common to rollerball ballpoint pens.

$2.00Add to cart

[/twocol_one][twocol_one_last]Realistic pressure responsive ballpoint pen brushes for Photoshop Realistic pressure responsive ballpoint pen brushes for Photoshop[/twocol_one_last] Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

New Brush Sample template

sample Photoshop brush stroke previewer template
sample Photoshop brush stroke previewer template

This is two previews in one; sample brush strokes of Tremble Stem, a Photoshop Ink brush I’m working on that should be in the shop soon but also a preview of a new brush stroke sampler template. I want to develop a standard set of sample strokes that will both show off the brush in action and at the same time enable you to compare them in a relatively standard fashion. I’ve borrowed a template style from the excellent reviews of brush pens that I really enjoyed on Parkablogs written by Teoh Yi Chie. By performing a similar set of strokes using each brush I hope to be able to give a good idea of how each GrutBrush performs so that you can pick the perfect brush for your digital painting or drawing. This is just the first draft, based on Chie’s samples and it will probably change before I implement it widely. Continue reading New Brush Sample template

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
Posted on Leave a comment

Quick Photoshop Watercolor Sketch

Photoshop watercolor sketch
watercolor sketching in Photoshop

 

Watercolor in Photoshop can be just as tricky as real watercolor and some of the same techniques apply. A little forethought can go a long way as digital paint ‘dries’ when you lift your pen so ideally you want to do one contiguous area in one unbroken brush stroke. Don’t lift the stylus from the tablet and be prepared that each subsequent stroke will give you a darker colour (see the hair in the top left) due to the multiply effect.  Think of it as laying down multiple layers of coloured plastic sheets – the areas where they overlap will be darker and you will see the seams.

This sketch actually took about 3 minutes and is sped up a lot, but it’s all Photoshop. Painted with the free Cherry Pectin watercolour brush found here: grutbrushes.com/free-realistic-photoshop-watercolor-brush/

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail