Creation Station

Sue Wood

Playing With Brushes, Part 2

After the previous lesson in how to create pretty texture brushes, we can take it a step further now and make really useful pattern-within-pattern brushes which are so useful for brushing up a quick paper or two when you want something in an instant.

Take a brush from your brush selection, say a nice textured brush.  I am using rough round bristle (originally 100px) and increasing the size to 400px.

I have the tip shape set at flip x and y, and have ticked the following:

• Angle 0

• Roundness 100%

• Spacing at 25%

Go next to Shape Dynamics and choose size jitter between 5 and 10 percent.  This will create a hit and miss effect in the finished brush which creates interest.  Additional settings:

• Min diameter 0

• Angle jitter 100% control : direction

• Roundness jitter 0%

Next is Texture and this is where the fun begins.  Before we actually do this we need to create the shape we want for our pattern.  So we make a small new document and then go to custom shapes and draw out a new shape.  Trim it to fit, then go to edit and choose "define custom pattern".  Give it a name as I have done here. I made a snowflake for my pattern within.  Return to your brush palette and textures and from there choose your pattern. You have just made as a texture. 

Additional texture settings:

• Scale 100%

• Texture each tip uncheck

• Mode: multiply

• Depth 75%

• Minimum depth 0%

• Depth jitter 75%

• Control off

Now test out your brush and see what it is like using foreground and  background colors of choice.

Next the Color settings:  Using foreground and background colors of choice, set foreground background jitter at 100%.  I set the Hue jitter at 64%, but you may want to set it lower as it changes your base colors quite a bit. Try 25%.  Additional settings:

• Saturation jitter try between 10% and 25%

• Brightness 0

• Purity 0

Now use your brush, try different brush textures for your main brush and different shapes for your texture pattern. This can make really interesting patterns particularly when layered with the brush I showed you last month.  You can play around and discover new and exciting patterns and combinations, just as I did when I started to play with brushes. 

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