Procreate Painting Brushes (and tips)

Yo guys, what's up? Welcome back to a new video. So it's been a while. It's been about a month since I uploaded my last video, which kind of sucks to be honest. But oh well, what you're going to do. But anyway, so in today's video, I want to show you one of my favorite brush sets that I created for Procreate. So before Procreate, I was using Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop, and I had some very specific brushes that I used in those programs. And I wanted to kind of transfer them over to Procreate. And I tried my best to kind of imitate them to recreate them for Procreate. So this was one of my earliest sets, and I'm super happy with it. It's probably also my most popular brush set. So looking at my store analytics, it's definitely one of the most purchased products in my store. And so I thought, why not do a video on it and kind of explain how I use these individual brushes and just go from there. So if we just look at the brushes that we have in the set, so we have 13 brushes, all of them are custom made and built from the ground up. So all of them have their custom texture and custom brush shape and stuff like that. So we have 13 brushes, and there aren't any sketching brushes in here. So this is just something I want to mention up front. There aren't any pencils or any sketching tools in here, even though you could use some of these for sketching and I have done in the past. But just to let you guys know there aren't any pencils in here. So Shade, the first brush, is one that I use for details or for highlights. Then the next couple of brushes, Hotline, Hotline Fuzzy, Butterbrod, Standard Hard Round. These are like brushes that I use for painting, and these are rather smooth. So I use them for skin, for example, or when I need to blend something. Air Gordon is just a simple airbrush, just a really soft brush to kind of create like softer shadows or to blend some colors into each other. Even though I don't like to use airbrushes for blending, I like to use them more to like create soft shadows. So the next few brushes, Blockbuster and Squarepens, are two brushes that I like to use for color blocking. So color blocking is right after I've done my sketch. I like to use a flat color and kind of give every single object in my painting or in my drawing a flat color. And so I use these color blocking brushes to kind of block in these colors. Next up, we have Bristly Bear, Rake, and Jim Harry, and also for bristle. And these are like bristle brushes, and I mainly use them for painting hair or to kind of add some texture to my paintings because they kind of imitate natural brushes, so realistic brushes. And so the last one is called Tristar. This is kind of similar to the first couple of painting brushes such as Hotline, just that the shape of it is triangular. And I sometimes like to use it to kind of get a sharp edge or something or to just kind of mix it up because if you only use one single brush for the entire painting, it's going to look a little bit stiff or boring. And so to kind of mix it up and to add some kind of variation to it, I sometimes like to use a different shaped brush than before, and that's what Tristar is for. So to demonstrate these brushes, I have this painting here or this drawing that I created a few months ago. And so basically, this is a finished painting already, but I'm going to use it to show you the individual brushes. So I'm just going to turn off all of the colors here and just return back to my sketch. And so this was the original sketch. So let me just create a new layer below my sketch. So usually my process goes like this. I sketch on a single layer, and when I'm happy with it, I turn my sketch into a multiply layer, and then I create a new layer below my sketch. And what this allows me is to kind of pick my colors without messing up my sketch. So my sketch always stays intact because it's on top of everything, and I get to play around with my colors, with the shading. And once I'm happy with the coloring, that's when I create a new layer on top of my sketch and do the final touch-ups. So as I said, typically when I'm painting, I have my sketch, and then I like to use flat colors for each single object in my drawing. And so that's what I'm going to do here. So my process starts with one of these two brushes. So we have Blockbuster and we have Squarepens. And so these are the two brushes that I like to use for the color blocking. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to use a color for the skin. And so this doesn't have to be correct right now. We can always color correct later on. So I'm going to pick a color for the skin and also one of these two brushes for the blocking. And then you can kind of change the size of it depending on what you like. And then just give the entire painting or the parts that you want to color in their color. So in this case, her skin. And so I like to use these two brushes because they're kind of a broader shape. They make it very easy and quick to kind of fill in these shapes. And so you can see this was like less than a minute. And so I do the same for the other parts of the drawing. So for example, and we can also use the Squarepens now just to kind of show you how I would do this. And so for example, if we were to fill in her hat, then we would just pick a color and we can change the size, make it a little bit smaller and then just fill in the hat. And also what you can do before you do this is you can actually create a new layer. So give each object in your painting a separate layer. And this is going to make it easier later on when you're trying to clean up certain areas or when you're trying to shade your painting. It kind of makes it easier if the layers are separated. So we're just going to give this hat its own color. And again, it doesn't have to be perfect because we can always go back and edit things and manipulate the shapes and colors. And because we're so early on in the process, we get to experiment with almost everything in this in this sketch. So we gave the hat a separate color and we can do the same for her sweater. So we're just going to pick a different color. And I also created a new layer just now. So we're going to pick, let's pick kind of purple for it and just fill it with the purple color. All right. So this is how I would use these two brushes. It's rather simple. It's just for blocking in the colors. I rarely use these brushes for painting later on. So I don't use them for shading or anything. I mostly use them just for the blocking. And it's a very simple process. And so let me just show you the layers that I created when I originally painted this image just to kind of give you an idea on how it looked in its original state. So this was the skin layer. Then we have the hat and we have the hoodie. We also have the logo and we have the hair. So these were the original layers that I created with the blocking brushes. And I love these brushes just because they're kind of such a broad shape and it makes it very quick and easy to kind of fill in these shapes. And that's about it. So there's nothing more to these brushes. They're very simple to use. But I just wanted to kind of give you an idea on how I use them. All right. So once I have the flat colors, what I typically do next is I start shading. And the way I do this is I create a new layer on top of each flat color and I activate a clipping mask. And what this does is it kind of stops me from drawing outside of the shape that's below it. And this keeps it very clean and kind of allows me to only paint inside of the shape. So I'm going to quickly show you what I mean and then I'm going to show you the process that I originally took for this painting. So if we just go down to the colors. So you can see that right here, the layer that's highlighted is called base and skin because this is my skin layer. So if I turn it off and on, you can see that's the skin. And so I'm going to create a new layer on top. And you can see that there's a little arrow that's pointing to the layer below. And that's because it's a clipping mask. So if you just tap the layer, there's going to be a new menu that pops up and it says clipping mask. And if you activate the clipping mask, this layer is going to be locked to the shape below. And so I'm going to quickly show you what it does. So if I were to paint now with the clipping mask activated, you can see that even though I'm trying to draw outside of the shape, the color is locked into the skin layer. And so this makes it very easy to kind of organize your colors and to keep your layering clean. And it just makes it a whole lot easier later on. And so for shading, what I typically do is or what I typically use is one of these brushes. So hotline, hotline fuzzy, butterboard or the standard hard round. Hotline is my absolute favorite brush. So it's very similar to the standard hard round brush, but it's a little bit creamier. I can't really explain it, but it's softer. And I love it because it makes it so easy to blend colors in a natural way. It's just amazing for painting skin. And since I do a lot of portraits, this is probably the perfect brush for me. So hotline is definitely my favorite brush in any software. So I have created it for Procreate. I've created it for Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop. So next up we have hotline fuzzy, which is basically the same brush, but it has a noise texture applied to it. So if you want that kind of vintage look, or if you want some texture in your skin, you can use the hotline fuzzy because it's going to add a subtle texture to your painting. Next up we have butterboard, which is kind of similar to the standard hard round brush, but there's a larger spacing, meaning that each brush stamp has a large gap in between. It kind of gets rid of that clinical feeling that you sometimes get from digital art. Because when you're painting digitally, it can happen quite easily that everything looks kind of perfectly clean and too clinical. And so by adding these small gaps in between each brush stamp, it kind of breaks up that cleanliness, you know. The last brush that I like to use for blending is standard hard round brush. And this is just the simple brush that's in Photoshop or in any other software. It's the standard hard round brush that comes with most painting softwares. So as I said, hotline is my most favorite. And so I'm going to start out with this one and just show you quickly how I would use this in a painting scenario. So we have our base layer, we created a new layer on top, activated a clipping mask. So what I'm going to do next is I'm going to color pick the color of the skin, and I'm going to make it slightly darker, a little bit more saturated, and I'm going to shift the hue over to the red a little bit. Then I'm going to test out the color, see if I like it or not. I happen to like it. And so now I'm just going to paint in the areas that I think need shadows. So I'm just going to go in here and start painting where I believe the shadow area is in this piece. So again, I'm not being perfectly clean here or anything. I'm just experimenting. And if anything goes wrong, I can always delete this layer and start over. So no need to be afraid of experimenting. Just play around with a bunch of different ideas And so these are just some very simple shadows. And now what I can do is I can kind of soften them up in areas where I think the shadow needs to be a little bit softer. So the way I'm going to do this is I'm going to select the edge of one of the shadow areas where the color is a little bit lighter. So it's in between the skin color and the darkest shadow. And then I'm just going to press very lightly onto my pencil and soften up that area. And so this is kind of blending 101. It's very simple and pretty self-explanatory. But yeah, so I'm pressing very lightly and I'm kind of painting in between the shadow. Sorry, that was my phone. So I'm painting in between the shadow and the skin just like this. We can do the same down here. And so I'm going to show you a quick trick. This is another technique that I use my airbrush for. So when you're painting with the airbrush, what you can do is you can select your eraser tool, select the airbrush. And so down here on her throat, we have this shadow and I want it to kind of fade out the lower it gets. So I want it to get smoother towards the bottom. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the airbrush as an eraser to kind of soften up the bottom area. So I'm just going to lightly erase away. The bottom of this shadow and you can see how it gets softer. And so this was super simple and you can see what kind of effect it has on the entire on the entire sketch so far. So if I turn off this layer, you can see how it kind of adds depth to it. It already starts to look kind of three-dimensional. And these were just a couple of quick steps. So if I'm going to show you the original layer that I had for this, it's going to look way different. As I said, it's been a couple of months since I painted this image and it's a little bit more complicated or complex. I also used a reference at the time. So I'm just going to show you the layers that I used or that I created back then. So this was the first layer of shading and you can see I also started adding some lighting to it. So on the left side, you can see some yellowish lights happening on her skin. Then I created another layer on top and this is the final layer of shading for her face. So I added some blue lighting to it, some ambient lighting to kind of make it a little bit more interesting and not so dull. And so I do exactly the same for the hat, for her sweater and so on. So if we go to the hat, just some very simple shading right here and some on top. And so a cool idea or something to keep in mind is to always switch up your brushes. The more variety you add to your painting, the more interesting it's going to look. So try to mix it up. Use multiple brushes. If you have multiple brush sets, then work with multiple brush sets. So that's what I do. So if you look over to the left side right here, I have a bunch of different brush sets here and I switch between them. So sometimes I use only one brush from this set. Then I switch over to another set and use that set. And so moving on, we have these brushes down here, which I mentioned before. And typically I use them for straight hair. So if the female or the person in my portrait has straight hair, long hair preferably, that's when I like to use these bristle brushes because they make it so easy to kind of give the effect of individual strands of hair because a bristle brush basically already kind of imitates that. But since we're painting these braids here, they don't have the same effect, but you can still create some cool effects with it. So let's just create a new layer on top just to kind of quickly show you what you can do with a bristle brush when painting braids, for example. So let's just select the color of the braid, make the color a little bit lighter. And so instead of painting just downwards as if you were painting straight hair, because this is not going to have the correct effect, what you can do is you can paint in a circular motion. And this kind of creates this really cool pattern. And so obviously you don't want to leave it at this, but this is going to add some texture to your painting, which would take a lot of time if you were to do it manually. And so you kind of need to improvise as well. So with all of these brushes, they don't have like one single purpose, you know. Be creative. If there's, for example, you can use these to paint fur, you can use these brushes for anything. You can paint mechanical things with them. You just need to be a little bit creative and use them in your own type of way. Like make them uniquely yours, kind of implement them into your workflow. Experiment and see what you can come up with. Just because I use them in a certain way doesn't mean you need to use them in the exact same way. So for example, sometimes I use the hotline brush or shadé for sketching, because if you size it down, so if we just size down the brush, you basically have a pencil. And if you size it up, you have a brush for painting. I always try to kind of use them for all kinds of different purposes. So for example, when I'm painting hair, most of the time I'm not even using bristle brushes. So if you watch any of my earlier videos, most of the time when I'm painting hair, what I do is I give it a flat color. Then I use the lasso tool to block in the shadows and to paint in the shadows and the lighting. I mostly use a standard hard round brush, something like hotline, maybe standard hard round or hotline fuzzy. But anyway, so this kind of wraps it up. So just to kind of give you a quick summary. So shadé is used. So for example, if we go to the finished piece, I haven't showed you shadé yet. So let me just activate all of these layers right here, just to show you the finished piece. So here's the finished piece and you can see the highlights in her eyes and on her nose and stuff. So that's what I like to use shadé for. So if we select shadé and we create a new layer on top, because shadé has kind of this, it kind of thins out at the ends. You can create like really cool highlights with it. So let's just size it down. Select white as our color and then add some strong highlights in her eyes. So I'm just going to go like this. And there you go. So in just a couple of seconds, she got sparkly eyes. And I mean, this is just very cheesy the way I just showed it to you, but that's basically all I'm doing. There's no like secret to it. Just some really standard brushes. So if you look at other, at other sets, it does get a little bit more stylized with some other brushes that I created, but it's always the same concept. We've got these detail brushes or pencils. We got the painting brushes. We got the block ends and we got the softer brushes and the effect brushes. So every set of mine has these concepts in them, but this one was specifically created with painting in mind. And as I said, it's my favorite set out of all. It includes my favorite brush of all times, which is hotline. So if you're interested, I suggest you kind of check it out. I'm not forcing anybody to buy my products. It's not even an ad. I just wanted to create this video for the people who already bought this specific brush set, because I do get quite a lot of emails asking for somewhat of a tutorial or a quick run through of these brushes. So I just wanted to kind of quickly show you what I use these brushes for. And since there are only 13 brushes, it was a rather quick video. But again, we got Sade for the details. We got hotline, hotline for painting and shading. Then we got ale gordon for softer shadows. We got blockbuster and square pens for the color blocking. Then we have grizzly bear, rake, jim harry and for bristle to kind of paint hair and to add texture to our painting. And we got tristar just as an alternative for our standard hard on brushes. So I do hope this video helped you a little bit. If you still have any questions, then please leave a comment below. If you haven't subscribed to my channel, make sure to hit that subscribe button. And as always guys, thanks a lot for watching my videos. I love you with all my heart and soul. Peace.