21 EXTRA Photoshop brush tips!

In this 2nd part of my tutorial on understanding and using Photoshop Brushes you'll learn how to create MONKEY FUR, of all things, and a great deal more!

The first part can be viewed HERE .........

Part two - Let's make our own

Having explored the fundamentals of PS brushes in part one I’m now going to show you how to create your very own unique brushes. 

The first point to remember is that any mark made on the screen can be turned into a Photoshop brush. Even a photograph can be captured and ‘stamped’ into your artwork.

You can type text, convert it to paths and then use that text image as a brush.

TIP - This can be handy when used to ‘stamp’ your copyright details, contact details etc onto an image to save time actually typing out the words.

So, to save a mark as a new brush shape always follow these steps.

Picture 1 - Rather than draw my new shape, I’ve used the path tool to create a shape called ‘single hair’. Once it’s made active and filled with black you can then save as a brush... (pic 2)

Menu / Edit / Define Brush preset ...

name your brush, I’ve called mine ‘fuzzy’ (pic 3)

You’ll now see ‘fuzzy’ listed as the final brush preset in the drop down list, (pic 4) and like we learnt in part 1, it isn’t of much use until you start tweaking the settings.

First of all open up the spacing (pic 5) so that when you ‘paint’ the single hair shapes are nicely spaced (pic 6).

Then using these settings to multiply the single hair shape (pic 7) you will begin to see just how versatile your brush is becoming.

With a rusty red foreground colour and brighter orange as the background colour, we start to get some interesting marks.

21 EXTRA Photoshop brush tips!

We can further exploit the settings by usefully controlling the direction of the fur strokes, (pic 8) and thus, we can paint a pom-pom shape.

TIP - Another amazingly useful function I’ve not yet mentioned, is that any brush can be used to stroke along a path. So if you need a particular shape, but don’t feel confident drawing freehand, create a path, and then ask PS to stroke it with your new brush. It could be a single line (pic 10) or an elegant shape that would be impossible to control by hand (pic 11).

But of course you don’t need to restrict yourself to the initial single hair, especially if you’re after realistic fur.

Pic 12 shows a brush created from a collection of random shapes and the resulting effects achieved.

Your brush shapes can be saved, exported, emailed to a friend etc.

TIP - There are thousands of useful free brushes online, made available by the community of generous PS users.

I’ll briefly show you one final “Hair and Fur” brush.

I downloaded this and tweaked it, and you should still be able to find it online. Although you’d never guess from it’s peculiar single-dab brush shape (it’s that white squiggle on the blue square) this is one of the most realistic brushes around for painting hair, and many artists have used it to great effect.

Take a look at my settings (pic 13) and then how I gave myself a quick 10 minute hairy makeover in pic 14.

Keep reading, click here to go to the next post below to see the final part of this article.

21 EXTRA Photoshop brush tips!

TIP - Rather than resort to expensive and difficult to master 3D programmes, I’ve instead been using various hair and fur brushes for a number of years now.

Here you can inspect a few of my characters that have benefitted from these particular brushes ...

In this fun Polar Bear Christmas card design 

(which can be bought online in my ZAZZLE shop right now) 

the fur, the frosty trees, snow and the snowflakes all use custom Photoshop brushes.

Fellow illustrator Mike Brownlow includes various PS brushes amongst his array of illustration tools and techniques. He says,

“Brushes can be great when used judiciously, and are really useful. I just wish I could work out a better way of organising them.”

Here’s how Mike employs his subtle craft, carefully using fur brushes, and others, in his successful Boris the Troll books...

www.mikebrownlow.com

And here with some underwater and skin textures from his book Kraken Attack ...

www.mikebrownlow.com

FOLIAGE BRUSHES.
Obviously all the considerations and the various settings that I’ve mentioned so far in connection with fur and hair, can equally be applied to any other texture or effect that you’re after.

Without going into extra details here’s a collection of my own foliage brushes, (pic 17) the actual brush shapes are shown at the top along with the resulting effects.

And in this jungly/forest book illustration, (pic 18) you’ll see how I’ve made good use of a few of them.

Finally, let me show you how to create a really cool textured pastel/chalk brush.

(pic 20) In the vignetted oval we can see the actual brush shape, and below, the settings used to achieve these soft pastel-like marks.

TIP - The background is a scan of pencil on cartridge and the texture used in the brush settings aims to emulate this so that the colour sits on top of the cartridge, unless more pressure is used, and then the colour sinks into the texture.

And below, these soft, watercolour-like marks in pic 21 were made with the 3 brush tip shapes pictured at the top. 

TIP - Your original brush shape needn’t be filled with 100% black, remarkable effects can result from faded softer brush shapes.

One final thought, having created a favourite brush, don’t limit yourself to ‘painting and drawing’ with it.

You can deploy your brand new brush as an eraser or even as the smudge tool for some further exciting and unexpected effects.

Have fun with your brush experimenting and be sure to bookmark this blog and check back for more pro Photoshop tips in future.

You can see more of my Photoshop illustration work at www.hotfroggraphics.com
and even contemplate buying a whole range of gifts featuring my designs on my HOT FROG ZAZZLE SHOP.