Kenny Spicer makes art of bad-ass bikers, bitchin’ Camaros, and other things Kustom Kulture enthusiasts go wild for. Think hot rods, skull tattoos, and anything that would look totally sick on a black t-shirt. As the drawer-in-chief at his company, Inkered, Kenny’s focus is on graphic illustration, so he needs to use a lot of different tools to get his ideas into formats that can be used by printers. He often shuttles his art back and forth between SketchBook, Photoshop, and Illustrator. This is an especially common workflow for people who need to turn their hand-drawn art into complex vector illustrations. We asked Kenny to tell us how he uses SketchBook when composing these highly detailed illustrations.

Download Kenny’s Inkered Brush Set

As part of this process, we also asked Kenny to make us a brush set for SketchBook Pro users who might want to try making this kind of detailed line art that he’s so good at making. Download Kenny Spicer’s Inkered Brush Set and check out all his unique brushes: Inker, Leaky Pen, Zen Brush, Grain Brush, Ink Brush, Scratchboard Rake, Ink Speckles, Ink Specks, Pattern Brush, Texture Pattern Brush, Texture Brush, Spike Chain Type Thing, Pastel Blender, Watercolor Like, and Smudge Exploder. These are all great examples of the kind of customization you can do with the new SketchBook Texture Brush options we released last week for our desktop apps. As you will see, textured brushes can help you create art that is cross-hatched or dotted or has its own small internal patterns — it’s perfect for adding the kind of halftone-friendly details that are associated with old-school printing processes.

Drawing Individual Assets

I use SketchBook daily in my workflow in a couple of different ways. Sometimes I use it in a pre-proof stage where I draw out a sketch for a client to get a general idea of what the end result will look like. Most of the time with my art, I am using the symmetry and perspective tools to make the drawing process much faster. After that initial drawing, my sketch might be moved into Photoshop or Illustrator and used as a template for the rest of the illustration.

Drawing the Details

Another way I use the app is in building assets for a design. I create background elements to be placed into a more complete design or even just create line work that will later be auto-traced in Illustrator to create a vectorized version of the individual assets. SketchBook’s specialized tools are put to use in a number of ways on each design. In this one I created the main focal part of the design in SketchBook (the girl on the bike) and then moved it into Photoshop to continue adding type and other elements.

Drawing to Fit in a Larger Composition

Sometimes I will export a JPG image of what I have so far and then place that into SketchBook to sketch over and use symmetry or perspective tools to help create other parts of the design that overlap or need to be aligned with other elements. I can ink it in SketchBook or bring that one layer back into Illustrator/Photoshop to pick it back up.

Starting on iPad, Finishing on Desktop

One of best things about SketchBook that helps me do what I do is the fact that SketchBook runs across all devices. Regardless if I am on an iPad, a Surface, or working on my Mac it’s always there, and I can pick up and start working from anywhere. I can start sketching out a customer’s design on my iPad and then pick right back up on the desktop app to finalize it. This kind of freedom and ease of use makes SketchBook my primary go to app when starting a design.

Watch Kenny in Action

Kenny made this neat Bike Show poster for us to show how he does what he does:

Making detailed designs like this for clients takes some dedication, but the reward for all this hard work can be very satisfying. Kenny recorded himself (in two parts) making this commissioned motorcycle illustration, and he really does a good job of explaining how he uses SketchBook to go from line drawing to final product. Check it out if you want to see how to compose a drawing like this:

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Free Brush Set: Kenny Spicer’s Inkered Illustration Brushes appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

In the real world, wear and tear happens on everything we interact with. Grunge can tell the story behind an object — from the torn edges of your favorite hoodie to the paint that peels from that spot where you always place your hand.

How do you make your artwork feel gritty and grainy? With our free set of SketchBook Grunge Brushes. Adding textures (a brand-new feature) can make your artwork more realistic and visually interesting. Twelve different dirty textures are in this set: Oil Spots, Tire Treads, Dirt Splash, and many more.

It’s a pretty simple matter to take something squeaky clean and make it a mess. Follow along as we dirty up a shiny blue robot.

How to Lay Down the Grunge

After installing the Grunge Brush Set, open it up and give it a look. You’ve got twelve different types of gritty goodness to muss up your drawing with. I made a new layer for my grunge under the robot line art, and I went to town! Check out the transformation below from clean to scratched up:

Use Transparent Ink for Detail

The Grunge brush textures look good, but they can be even more unique with “transparent ink.” Transparent ink is a special feature in SketchBook. You can find it in the color puck, right here:

With transparent ink, any brush you use actually becomes an eraser. That means you can use any textured shape, like the grunge brushes, and add more detail by erasing the edges.

Play with Blending Modes

Blending modes are a powerful way to get neat effects quickly. They use complicated equations to change the way the layer’s color behaves in relation to the other layers. You can find them in the Layer Editor menu here:

On my grunge layer, I tried out a few blending modes to see the way it changed up my robot. Depending on the colors and tones you use in your art — the dark and the light — you’ll get wildly different results from each blending mode.

You should try as many as you can. You might be surprised at what happens! Check out this video below, which shows Normal blending mode vs. Soft Glow and Multiply:

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Free Grunge Brushes: Adding Banged Up Texture to Your Art appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

You don’t have to be a comic book fan to love halftone art, but if you are a fan of comics we bet you love that traditional halftone look. We sure do. The look that comes from images made up of thousands of tiny dots feels positively retro in today’s digital world, but the halftone process is still quite popular with printers. We challenged ourselves to come up with a way for SketchBook Pro users to incorporate halftone effects into their art, and with SketchBook’s new texture brush options, we’re able to bring you a brush set custom made just for this purpose. Download the free Comic Halftone Brush Set and add some cool, new texture brushes to your app.

Making Your Own Halftone Comics

You can use these brushes on their own for all kinds of things, but if you want to create the kind of comic book look that pop artist Roy Lichtenstein made famous (or plagiarized, depending on your view), you’ll want to get familiar with how Lock Transparency works. If you’ve never used it before, it works a lot like how clipping paths work in apps like Photoshop. When you draw a figure on its own layer and click the lock icon, you’re creating a boundary that will respect the line art you’ve created. Perhaps the best use of this is to color a figure you’ve drawn and easily stay within the lines. SketchBook Community Manager Renée DiCherri created a great mini tutorial video that shows exactly how she does it.

For creating a traditional comic style, we suggest using bold, thick lines. I used the Fineline Pen from the Designer set to make my line art. If you really want your line work to flow, check out how the new Predictive Stroke option can make your lines better. It’s perfect for drawing this kind of art.

One the line art is finished, lay down your base colors for each element using a flat color. Keep them on separate layers — such as the hair, skin tone, and other accents. Why not put it all on one layer? Keeping them separate allows you to choose different halftone textures for each element. Also, you can go back and change a color very quickly if you change your mind.

Now, choose one of your flat colors and duplicate it, and then lock the transparency. We’ll use the hair for this example.

Select a contrasting color and one of our many halftone texture options.

Now, add halftone accents to the duplicate layer. Locking the transparency lets us add accents on the hair only without worrying about spilling over the edges. And making a duplicate copy of the layer is just a safe bet. What if you change your mind? This way you always have a backup.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Comic Halftone Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

We all have a vision in our minds of what a cloud-filled sky looks like, but have you ever tried to draw them? It’s a little trickier than you might think. They can’t all look alike or symmetrical. Fortunately, you have access to digital tools so you can Undo at will, adjust the opacity of your brush strokes, or even use blending modes or other techniques to add transparency or color to your clouds. You have a lot of ways to make your clouds look dreamy, but we wanted to add another arrow to your quiver for drawing clouds — a brush set made specifically for this purpose.

Download the Cloud Brush Set and try your hand at drawing the many different types of clouds. This set is a combination of cool textured brushes plus a few pre-made stamps. Here’s our advice on how to draw clouds in a few easy steps.

Start your sky with one of the pre-made cloud stamps. You have five to choose from.

These stamps are based off some of the most common real-life clouds: cumulus, cumulonimbus, cirrus, stratus, and altostratus. Turn down the opacity on the cloud layer, and use the plus button on the editor to make a new layer on top.

Adding multiple layers in different transparencies mimics the real way clouds work — as a mish-mash of water vapor. On a new layer, use one of the non-stamp Cloud Brushes like Cotton Ball or Soft Fog to build up your custom fluffy shape.

For added pop, make another layer and set the blending mode to Glow. On this layer, use the brushes to add extra pop to those sun-frosted edges. We don’t recommend using white on a glow layer. In the example below, we chose a dark purple. Use any other color for an interesting glow effect like bright green, yellow, or red. You’ll be surprised at the unexpected results.

Don’t forget to add some background accents. The Feathered Touch brush is perfect for recreating those high-flying seemingly frozen cirrus clouds.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Clouds Brush Set: Paint With Some Dreamy Textures appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

We’ve published many in-depth tutorials on animal anatomy, so we thought it only made sense to create a Fur Brush Set for our users. Instead of having to painstakingly paint each stroke of hair, you can quickly add semi-realistic or realistic fur textures to your animal drawings with these thirteen brushes. With digital brushes it’s certainly faster and easier than traditional methods to paint realistic fur.

We painted a quick photo study of a gray wolf (using a reference photo from National Geographic) to show how to use the fur brushes to create that realistic effect. Though we chose to paint a wolf, you can use these brushes to paint all kinds of furry creatures.

From Silhouette to Shaggy

Start with the basic shape and colors of the wolf. This process was quick and messy – you only need a general idea of the fur’s color palette. The fur brushes will layer on top of this, which will add the realistic texture we’re looking for.

After mapping out the colors of the image, use the Short Fur or Short Sparse Fur brush to add texture to the wolf’s muzzle and overall face area. Remember that fur grows in a natural direction, so lay down the brush strokes facing in the same direction, just as the red arrows indicate on the image below. For longer fur, drag the Thick Fur Wisps brush in horizontal sweeps along the sides of the wolf, just as the blue arrows indicate. Depending on the type of animal fur you are painting, you can use any of the longer fur brushes (such as Wavy Fur and Straight Fur) to fill out the textures.

If you don’t like a particular section that you’ve painted, use the Rough Grainy Eraser so you don’t have harsh eraser lines on your image. For finishing touches, use the Fur Smudge Brush and Strand Brush to add extra wisps of fur.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Free Fur Brush Set: Paint Realistic Fluff with Textured Brushes appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Crosshatching is a basic technique for adding depth and shadows to your illustrations by drawing layers of overlapping lines. Chances are you’ve used or seen this technique before. Crosshatching can be found in all kinds of art. Some famous examples include Leonardo Da Vinci’s collection of sketches and M.C. Escher’s artwork. We’ve compiled a set of 20 brushes as the Crosshatch Brush Set to help you replicate the crosshatching effect.

Learning the basics of crosshatch shading is easy. You simply draw lines and then draw more lines on top of those in an opposite direction to create darker shades. But it’s a bit tricky on paper because it is hard to be consistent or precise with your crosshatching, especially if you’re drawing something like a sphere. The beauty of doing this in SketchBook is that you can use multiple layers to add more subtle gradients of crosshatching. You can also, of course, make mistakes in your values that are easily undone.

What’s in This Brush Set

The first five brushes are special because they use the new texture stamp. We recommend creating one dedicated layer for each crosshatch brush you use so you can easily go back and edit the amount of crosshatching.

Anatomy of a Crosshatch in Layers

I applied these brushes to a drawing of a skull, which I sketched and inked with the default brush set Texture Essential’s Pencil Pal and Signature Ink brushes.

Crosshatching in Art: Experts at Drafting

Crosshatching isn’t only for shading in black and white, but that is how it has almost always been used. Of course, you have the benefit of drawing digitally so you can draw in any color you want and even change that hue later in SketchBook if you decide you want to try pink or purple crosshatching. Some great historical examples of crosshatch include Albrecht Durer’s famous “praying hands” illustration he created as a study for a piece of art that was eventually destroyed (the study is all that survived, and the rest of the story is even more interesting).

You’ve probably seen this style in old books because crosshatching was a very printer friendly way to crank out black-and-white pages. Who among us hasn’t focused in on all the curious details of the American dollar, including all of those lines? (Note that crosshatching doesn’t always have to be perpendicular; contoured hatching is the same technique). For some spectacular crosshatching art that looks straight out of a Wall Street Journal front page, check out the very talented Keith Whitmer. And, of course, who would deny that M.C. Escher wore it best with his insanely creative and much-loved illustrations, in particular the impossible ladder of stairs in “Relativity.”

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Old School Art Values: Crosshatch Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Last year, we released a Watercolor Brush Set that became incredibly popular among our users. We decided to update this brush set to a Textured Watercolors Brush Set that includes 15 brushes with the new texture features we added not too long ago. By adding texture, these brushes look and feel even more like you’re painting with watercolors. It’s a dramatic difference that you’ll love if you enjoy using watercolor techniques.

What’s in This Set

In addition to updating the individual brushes from our first watercolor brush set to include texture, we added five more brushes: Broad Tip, Rough Round Tip, Bristle Round Tip, Seeping Brush, and Bleeding Brush. To create the effect of blending out your brush stroke with water, use the Blender brushes.

Using the Brushes

Inspired by galaxy watercolor portraits, I painted my own version using this Watercolor Brush Set. To start, I imported an image of watercolor paper onto the first layer as my background. These brushes pair well with the default brush set called Textured Essentials, so I used the Textured Essential brush set’s Pencil Pal for my initial sketch. Then, I grabbed the Textured Watercolors brush set’s Fine Tip watercolor brush to line the artwork.

Next, I tried a variety of watercolor brushes for different effects.

Then, I used the Blender watercolor brushes to blend out the edges.

For finishing touches, I used the Texture Essentials brush set’s Speckled brush and Signature Ink. Finally, I painted the stars and added highlights to the hair.

The final result, taking into account the textured options in SketchBook Pro, looks a whole lot more like watercolors than any previous brushes we’ve offered:

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Textured Watercolor Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Even with 160 default brushes for SketchBook Pro members and 50+ free brush sets here on our blog to download and add to the app, we felt like something was missing. We needed some brushes made specifically for drawing manga. So we created the Manga Basics Brush Set. We’ve released a lot of fun stamps and textures in the past (like these) for adding details to manga, but manga illustration requires straightforward tools for line art and coloring. We studied up on manga-specific drawing tools from a variety of other apps people regularly compare us to (including Clip Studio Paint and PaintTool SAI) and created our own version of manga brushes and placed them all in one convenient brush set.

What’s in This Set

This set includes 22 brushes that are grouped into three categories. My go-to brushes in this set are the Manga Draft Ink Pen, Manga Line Art Ink Pen, Manga Digital Watercolor, Watercolor Square, and Soft Airbrush.

A Step-by-Step Tutorial on Manga Illustration

First, use a Drafting Pencil or Rough Pencil for your preliminary sketch. Sketch out the general pose and body shape. (Don’t add clothes yet!) Don’t focus too much on the on the details. I sometimes use a darker background in this step so I can see every little detail. A white background sometimes makes it hard to see lighter strokes.

I then use the Manga Draft Ink Pen to create a more defined sketch. I turn off the dark background until the coloring stage so I can see my line art. This stage is where I decide on her final pose and clothing. You can see I played around with the arm placement here; one pose felt more natural than the other. I also resized her a bit with the Transform tool to make her proportions more manga-esque.

Turn the sketch down to ~25% opacity and line the artwork with the Manga Line Art Ink Pen. I heavily used the Predictive Stroke tool to make sure my lines were smooth and clean.

Next, turn the sketch layer invisible. Use the magic lasso tool to outline where you’ll color in. Designate one layer for each block of color. Once you have selected the area you want to color in, use the Manga Fill Brush to paint in the area. At this point, you’ll want to turn on a darker background so you can easily see your lighter colors.

Then, turn on Lock Transparency for each layer and use the Manga Digital Watercolor brushes to add shading and highlight effects. I mainly used the Watercolor Square brushes to paint the skin and hair. I used the Blur tool to sometimes blend colors together.

After you’re done coloring in, add a layer of white highlights on the skin and loose strands of hair. This will give your character more dimension.

Finally turn off the dark background and decide what to do from there. I thought a cloudy afternoon sky would suit her color palette.

I used our previously released Clouds Brush Set to paint the clouds. For the foreground, I used the Dust Motes brush from our previously released Sparkles, Neon, and FX Brush Set and the Speckled brush from our default Texture Essentials Brush Set to add more dimension.

And there you have it! If you need inspiration, check out the Japanese art community website Pixiv, where tons of amazing artists post beautiful manga illustrations every day.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Manga Basics: Free Brush Set & Drawing Tutorial appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Our friend Jason Heeley has been busy building an incredible library of custom brushes. Hundreds of them, each more interesting than the last. If you know Jason’s work, you are keenly aware that he’s a master at creating landscapes and environmental textures in his concept art. Using his brushes is pretty much cheating when it comes to painting natural environments. Today, we give you that opportunity. Download Jason’s Art Brushes and install them in SketchBook for Mac or PC and use them in your own art, whether that’s creating concept art or just beautiful landscapes.

What’s in This Brush Set

This is Jason’s go-to personal toolset that contains a huge range of brushes, erasers, and effects. Below is a beautifully illustrated chart showcasing each brush’s capability.

Jason’s Brushes on Creative Market

It’s truly amazing how many great brushes Jason put into this free set, but these 35 brushes are actually only part of the story. He recently opened his own store on Creative Market, and this set is one of 15 sets in his Pro Brushes Collection. The entire collection contains 286 separate brushes (!) and has different sets for drawing foliage, trees, rock, grasses, ground surfaces, clouds, and snow. You can get all of Jason’s SketchBook Pro Brushes for a mere $12, but of course why not start with this free set he’s sharing with us on the SketchBook blog.

We think you’ll see right away that he has a knack for not just drawing beautiful landscapes but also for creating excellent tools for artists. His massive collection is quite frankly one of the most impressive uses of the SketchBook brush engine we’ve ever seen. We highly encourage you to consider grabbing the entire collection (along with his tip sheets) for your own art projects.

Learn to Draw Concept Art with Jason

Jason created a tutorial for the SketchBook blog a few months back, so check out his Epic, Icy Landscapes tutorial (with downloadable brush set) if you’ve ever wanted to experiment with drawing concept art. If you’re already a fan of concept art, you’ll recognize this kind of massive landscape with one single, solitary pilgrim wandering through it. It’s a classic take and one that you can accomplish with a little experimenting (and the right brushes).

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Jason Heeley’s Art Brushes: Part of an Epic Collection appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

If you’re one of the regular readers of our blog, you know we have a mission for SketchBook Pro users that we take deadly serious — providing you with the best brush sets on the planet. Period. We scour the Internet every week, stalking our favorite users to learn what people are making and what might be missing from their workflow. Recently, we came across this:

You ask, we listen. We immediately got to work and built from the ground up a new set of art brushes that will blow your mind with freshness. Download the Toothpaste Brush Set and start adding winter-fresh flair to your sketches.

What’s in this Brush Set

We’ve collected 13 mouth-watering brushes for you into one blockbuster set. You’ll find brushes like Aguafresh Xtreme Sandblast, a multi-striped stalwart that’s perfect for creating totally tubular lines, Coolgate Enamel Teardown, a surprisingly abrasive marker for adding roughness, and Neon Grout, the perfect highlighter for adding that little shine to molars. Our team of art interns worked overtime in an unheated Toronto warehouse for a very long weekend to make sure each brush faithfully represents characteristics of the top brands of toothpaste recommended by 4 out of 5 of dentists. The results? You can be confident that your Cinnamint drawing has flecks of cinnamon crystals uniformly distributed — right down to the pixel level.

Sensitive? Try Our All-Natural Alternatives

But we didn’t stop there. We know some of our users bristle at the thought of using harsh brushes like Aguafresh Flouride Halflife — especially those who strictly use organic-paper textured background images. We made sure to include environmentally friendly brushes like our all-natural Timm’s of Maine texture brush made from images of conflict-free harvested horsehair.

Sail the seas of fresh breath with every stripe of flavor imaginable. The only limit is your imagination.

We’re confident fresh breath will be the new black when you see our hipster-favorite Activated Charcoal brush in action. If you’re an old-school artist who prefers completely all natural techniques (e.g., au plain painters), you’re only going to need one brush: Baking Soda. Delete everything else and don’t look back.

Join the #Toothpaint Challenge

We know our users are always up for a challenge, and we’re certain this new brush set will help you put a minty-fresh sheen on whatever you specialize in. Tag your drawings #toothpaint for a chance to be featured and ridiculed on the @autodesksketchbook social media feeds. We’re dying to see what you make with this innovative new brush set.

The post The Art of the Brush: Painting with Toothpaste appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

If you’ve ever tried to draw a lake or an ocean or a river, you know there are some tricks to it. If you’re drawing digitally, you should definitely take advantage of your layers and draw contour lines to help you visualize your water’s currents, ripples, and eddies. But the most important details will come from your brush choices. Today, we’re giving away a brush set from a master of drawing landscapes that is going to make drawing water a whole lot easier. It’s the Jason Heeley Water Brush Set.

What’s in This Brush Set

These brushes are designed to help you create components of water, which is always captured in movement. You’ll find brushes with names like Basic Waves, Big Directional Wave, Breezy Lake, Sea, River Flow, and Distant Ripples. You’ll also find brushes for making some of the details of water in movement like Sea Spray brushes and brushes for adding Foam, Glint, and Sparkle to your water. These brushes do a lot of the work for you and will save you a ton of time. They’re part of a massive collection of 286 brushes gathered together in 15 sets that Jason uses to create the details of landscape — everything from foliage, trees, rock, grasses, ground surfaces, clouds, to snow. The entire set is a very affordable $12 on Creative Market, but we’re giving away one part of it to our users.

If you like this brush set, you should also grab Jason Heeley’s Art Brushes. That is a set we put together awhile back that can be used whether or not you are a fan of landscapes or concept art. It’s just a great all-purpose brush set, and it’s free for SketchBook Pro members. If you like his work and want to see more of the kinds of art he makes, check out Jason on DeviantArt.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Drawing Water the Easy Way: Jason Heeley Water Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Following his wonderful Art Brush Set and his Water Effect Brush Set, Jason Heeley brings us a fantastical new set of brushes for SketchBook that are perfect for creating Fantasy Art. Be it dragons, mermaids or other magical beasts. Cliffs, mountains or deep forests; even castles and cottages this brush set will set you up to make beautiful Fantasy scenes.

New Fantasy Art Brush Set

Jason’s Free Fantasy Art Brush Set is a comprehensive pack of 35 new brushes tailored to the style and effects needed to make evocative and dramatic Fantasy Art.  There are beautiful, thoughtful brushes that layer and blend automatically. Some have a beautiful ink quality whose opacity shifts to lead effortless blending. Others are fantastic texture stamps that add dimension to your scenery. One of our favorite sets in this pack is the set of cloud effects, they are so impactful with just a sweep of your pen an entire magical night sky appears.

These Fantasy Art brushes are brand new and not included in Jason’s SketchBook Pro Brushes Collection that are for sale on Creative Market. That collection is a huge set of 320 brushes that can help you create everything in an epic landscape, sand to sky. That collection is just  $12 on Creative Market and would be a great compliment to this new Fantasy Art brush set. We suggest you include it in your SketchBook brush library.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the many features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Jason Heeley’s Fantasy Art Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Storyboard and comics artist Kevin Mellon has a great style when working in SketchBook. To get that style he has customized a set of brushes that dovetail perfectly with his workflow. His customized brushes let him work quickly but still imbue his storyboards with the emotional data and visual language necessary to carry the story.

His custom brushes include splatters that can act as grit, dust or blood spray; hash marks for quick shading and fill; and includes some fantastic pens and pencils whose hardness and nibs are customized for sketching and inking his work. These unique custom brushes have been put together in a free set for SketchBook Pro subscribers. You can get the Kevin Mellon Brush Set now to use it on all SketchBook platforms.

More on Kevin Mellon

Check out our article about Kevin’s favorite SketchBook features so you can see how he uses his custom brushes to create his Storyboards for the hit FX show Archer. If you are a fan of the show you should check out this article he wrote for us a few years back. In it, he walks us through his process of working on Archer. Now you can download and see how the Kevin Mellon Brush Set can add to your SketchBook workflow.

Installing the Free Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the many features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions.

The post Kevin Mellon Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

Over the past year we have posted over 50 Free Brush Sets on the blog and we realize that many of our new users haven’t had the chance to go back into our archives and access all the great content in our older posts. So we are putting together some Brush Set Collection posts for you. Here we will link you to all the Free Brush Sets in a given theme. So catch-up on the sets you missed and revisit that incredible art that was made using them in their original posts.

This first post is a comprehensive collection of 12 Fine Art effect brushes that we have posted over the past year. The linked sets cover the gamut of traditional fine art medium; from sketching pencils to oil paints, and from watercolor paints to abstract textures, we even have a grab bag of favorite blending brushes. Fill up your collection and remember to show us your work with the #AutodeskSketchBook tag on your Social Media posts.

Fine Art Pencil Set & Ink Brush Set

Charcoals Set & Chalks

Watercolors & Textured Watercolors

Oil Paints & Acrylic Paints

Rough Canvas Effect Set

Abstract Brushes & Messy Brushes

Favorite Blending Brushes

Installing the Free Brush Set

Being able to share and install these free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the many features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions.

The post Fine Art Brush Sets: The Collection appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.

No more lazy days of summer if you’re a student or teacher. It’s time for you to go back to school. To help you get in the mood (if that’s possible), we created a special set of colored pencil brushes you can download and install that will get you back to the basics.

Download the Free Brush Set

Simply download the Colored Pencils Brush Set for SketchBook and install it in the app, and you’ll always have a big batch of colored pencils on hand. We’ve created 25 brushes for you that represent a whole lot of different colors, including a white pencil for highlights and a colorless blender for smudging and smearing. While colored pencils are much more precise than basic art supplies like crayons, they aren’t completely clinical and one-note. They should have a little bit of texture to them, so we’ve made sure each of these 25 brushes have some slight variations.

Stretching Yourself with Colored Pencils

Do you remember drawing with colored pencils? What kind of things did you draw? This is a great opportunity for you to reconnect with the humble but noble colored pencil. Try these techniques:

• Contrast your shading: Give yourself a refresher on shading by trying to shade using two contrasting or even complementary colors. One neat trick in SketchBook that you may not be aware of: When you choose any Copic Color, you’ll see a “Complementary Copic Color” suggested at the bottom of the Copic Library window.
• Toned paper: Your background doesn’t have to be white. In fact, we remember drawing with colored pencils on colored paper, which taught us a thing or two about color. On the Background layer of your SketchBook file, you’ll see a white circle. Click on that to quickly choose a new background color.
• Textured backgrounds: We remember placing our sheet of paper on books or tables or things that had texture to them, which would “indent” the paper a bit so that the texture showed though. You can do that in SketchBook by importing a texture and playing with its opacity or by trying out different Layer Styles. Don’t want any texture at all? Use that colorless blender to smooth it all out.
• Banish extremes: Try not to use black and white at all. It’s tempting to always use white for highlights, but with colored pencils you have tons of colors to choose instead. Use pink or light blue or yellow for highlights or dark blues or purples instead of the standard black and white.

Installing the Brush Set

Being able to share and install these weekly free brush sets in the desktop app is one of the features for SketchBook Pro members. If you’re using the latest desktop version of SketchBook (version 8), simply double click on the .skbrushes file, and it will automatically install. Check out this article for all the details about brushes and legacy versions. If you haven’t tried SketchBook Pro, you can download a free trial and unlock Pro membership for 15 days (no credit card required).

The post Colored Pencils: A Free Brush Set appeared first on Autodesk SketchBook.