Nicolai Grut

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Free GrutBrush of the Week #34 – “Fin Summit” Photoshop Ink Brush

Back to line drawing! This week’s free brush is an ink brush with a relatively slender line which drops off and becomes intermittent at the lowest pressure but fattens up nicely at full pressure for a nice variable taper. This ink brush has a slightly worn edge which gives it a warm feel verging a bit more on the painty side of ink. The shading in the background was done with the ‘Damp Nakpin’ watercolor brush.

You can download this week’s free Photoshop brush until next Monday when, as always, there will be a new brush.

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Doodling in Photoshop With ‘Swash Wanted’ a new Photoshop Gouache Brush

Swash-Wanted-Photoshop-Gouache-Brush-Painting

This one is a fixed width rough and dry Gouache Photoshop brush with the characteristics of an old house painters brush found stashed behins the basement furnace. This brush works best with a lighter touch to reveal it’s dirty dry brush sparsity but you can go full pressure for total coverage at full opacity while keeping your edges ragged.
grutbrushes.com/shop/photoshop-brushes/swash-wanted-photoshop-gouache-brush/

Posted on November 5, 2015February 5, 2018 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

GrutBrushes Brush Stroke Guides Updated With 30 New Photoshop Brushes

The November update to the GrutBrushes cheat sheets & brush stroke guide is here with about 30 new brushes added since the last update.
You can see it online and hover/tap to magnify the brush strokes (the prettiest way to preview) or download one giant Jpeg or PDF

While this is a great way to get a good overview of what all your brushes look like in one go, don’t forget the all important animated brush stroke preview that you get when you click on the red ‘play’ button on every single brush in the brush shop

You can access and see all of these on the brush guides resources page

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Free GrutBrush of the Week #33 – “Rice patter” Photoshop Brush

Novembers-Hat-Painted-With-the-Rice-Patter-Photoshop-charcoal-brush

Sometimes a soft brush with no context, nothing to compare it to, can just appear as smudged, faded or even just out of focus. What I like about this week’s brush is that while it has a softness to it, it also has lots of sharp grainy ‘bits’ in it, which depending on the background, appear to be either paper flaws or flaky deposits of pigment. It’s digital after all so what they really are, is up to you.

You can download this week’s free Photoshop brush until next Monday when, as always, there will be a new brush.

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Free GrutBrush of the Week #32 – “Lead Thumb” Natural Media Photoshop Brush

When I was growing up I was never far from a pencil and a blank piece of paper and I spent countless hours sketching, doodling and experimenting with any tool that could make a mark on paper. I used to collect the graphite shavings from my pencil sharpener and would dip my fingers into the silky smooth powder and then use my loaded finger to draw or shade my sketches with dusty fingerprints and the smudges that inevitably came with them. The Lead Thumb natural media brush is my digital tribute to those late night experiments in my pencil lab. All these years later I finally made one that won’t spill all over the carpet.

I drew this dog with the Lead Thumb brush by using heavy stylus pressure to draw the dark full textured marks and then softening up the pressure to create the gray shaded areas. When lines were to thick or too pronounced I either used the eraser to chip away at them or just used a mid tone closer to the background to draw over them and soften them.

“Lead Thumb” is available for free all this week until next Monday when as always, there will be a new free Photoshop brush of the week

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Sketching a Cat With an Oil Brush

Cat drawn with Rooster Suit Photoshop oil brush — Doodling a Cat with the “*Rooster Suit*” Photoshop oil brush, one of my favourite Photoshop brushes due to it’s ‘feeling’ both pasty and gritty at the same time. Like real oils do.

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Drawing and Painting while combining Multiple Photoshop Brush Types

When making and testing brushes I tend to spend so much time with just one brush that I forget how the much fun comes from combining brushes. Sketching a stick figure outline with an ink brush I gave it some body and shading with a watercolour brush, a fun-fur collar and hat with two strokes of a fuzzy Charcoal brush, then back to ink for some personality by way of a pair of oversized blue glasses.

Brushes used:
Tremble Stem Ink
Slo Rise Charcoal Brush
Hope Lingers Watercolour Brush
GrutBrushes Artists’ Toolset panel plugin

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

Free GrutBrush of the Week #31 – Gritty Bits Pastel Brush

Giraffe Painted with the Gritty Bits Photoshop Brush

I painted this Giraffe with this week’s free Photoshop brush “Gritty Bits” a natural media pastel brush, available to download for free through Sunday in the brush shop or on the free brush page:
grutbrushes.com/freebrush

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Nicolai — Leave a comment

“Cave In” Photoshop Cross Hatching Brush

I didn’t get a chance to announce this week’s free GrutBrush on Monday due to my day job, but it’s been there and is still free until Sunday (24 hours left!) This one is a cross-hatching brush and I doodled this guy above using it. First I sketched the basic shape in black and then I ‘etched’ into it with the same brush, but using white to chip away at it (you could also use an eraser) and essentially carve into the black. Finally I made the layer a Multiply layer so that the white disappears and the paper background shows through.

As always you can get this on the free Photoshop brush of the week page