Hopefully, these images aren’t as blurry as they appear.

Hello everyone! Mari here. Boy, have I been busy! Between cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning (as well as yard work), I haven’t had time to breathe, let alone post anything. However, the past two weeks, I have been working on the above two images in order to show you what effects you can achieve by using downloadable Photoshop brushes. The majority of the brushes used were found on My Photoshop Brushes, a site I mentioned in a previous post. As I mentioned before, I love unique brushes simply because the default brushes are dull and don’t have much leeway when it comes to creating awesome images. For instance, if you want flower petals floating around, there isn’t a default brush for that. For example, there’s a grass brush in the default brushes, but it faces one direction or comes out in a string of multi-colored clumps that look like confetti at a parade. By searching a brush database, you can find a grass brush that suits your needs if the default brushes don’t work for you when learning how to draw.

Now, I’m not totally dissing the default brushes, since some of them are great. For instance, with my skies, I often use the Maple Leaf brush (default 74), which is great for creating Milky Ways and dark tones. I love the mottled effect of the maple leaf brush and how each stroke goes all over. This brush is great for creating POPS of color in the sky. However, when it comes to creating actual tree leaves, I’m not a fan of this brush simply because the leaves sometimes go in places you odon’t want leaves. So there is an instance of pros and cons for the default brushes.

With the downloadable brushes, the creators seem to know many of the frustrations that digital artists have, so many of the designers seem to cater to these issues by creating brushes that create streams of petals and leaves, and grass clumps that occur in multiple colors and unnatural groupings. My personal favorites are the water brushes, which really help with making realistic oceans, lakes and rivers. The only complaint I have with those is the fact that they are square brushes, so you have to use the eraser tool in order to get the brush’s effect to fit the particular portion you’re filling. Yes, it is a minor nitpicky thing, but I am critiquing after all. I used the water brushes in both of the above images, but I think the effect is more clear in the image on the right (which happens to be one of my most favorite images I’ve created).

Another thing I use the downloadable brushes for is for my own tutorial purposes. I admit, there are PLENTY of things I do not know about art, and there are many things that I am still learning. For instance, I cannot draw a moon to save my soul, so I downloaded moon brushes. I used the moon brush on the righthand image, but on the left, I learned how to create my own moon without the brush by paying attention to the contours and grooves of the actual moon brush. So for me, and maybe for others, the downloadable brushes are learning tools. For the aforementioned, I would like to thank the brush artists for creating their brushes and for sharing their skills with us fellow digital artists.

As you can see, there are many great uses for downloadable as well as default brushes. However, for digital artists, downloadable brushes make our job considerably easier. When you create a work of art though using these brushes, just make sure you give the creators credit. So without further ado, I would like to thank

Obsidian Dawn for the Sakura petal brushes.

Midnightstouch for the Grass Brushes

and

Keepwaiting for the skin tone brushes

Thank you so much for visiting, folks! Have a great day!

Mari

Tags: Default photoshop brushes, downloadable photoshop, downloadable photoshop brushes, Flower Petal Brushes, Obsidian Dawn Photoshop, Obsidian Down Brushes, Photoshop Brushes, Skin Brushes