Brushes

Build your own brushes with a few Simple sliders or the full Advanced controls for pressure, wet paint, and grain.

A brush that behaves like a real one. Pressure shapes the stroke. Paint can run dry as you drag. Colors mix wet into wet. Any image can be your bristle or your paper.

Every brush is a Brush node. Fresh nodes open on Pencil. With the Brush tool, scribble in the node's preview to try it. Turn on its Export toggle (the share icon on its title) and it joins the picker.

Simple mode#

Pick a category, tune a few sliders with physical names. That is all most brushes need.

Category Sliders
Pencil Hardness, Point, Paper
Ink Flex, Ink, Ink Flow, Taper
Marker Tip, Angle, Ink, Bleed
Charcoal Softness, Texture, Taper
Paint Loading, Wetness, Bristles
Watercolor Wetness, Edge, Pigment, Bloom
Airbrush Flow, Buildup, Overspray
Spray Density, Spread, Grit

Switching category resets the brush. Flip the Simple / Advanced toggle under the ports to see everything the category set up.

Advanced mode#

Pressure#

Size and Opacity each get a min and max: light pressure gives the min, full pressure the max. The Pen section holds the pressure curve (soft for a feather touch, hard for instant ink) and tilt response. Mouse strokes get a gentle taper at each end automatically.

Wet paint#

Control Effect
Dilution Water to paint. Higher is more transparent.
Charge Paint loaded on the brush. Low runs dry within a few brush widths. Lifting reloads.
Pull Picks up what is already on the canvas and drags it along. Wet into wet.
Wet Edges Pigment pools at the edge, the watercolor ring.
Burnt Edges Darkens where the stroke crosses itself. Applies when you lift.
Wash Blur Softens the canvas under the stroke when you lift.

High opacity and no wetness is hard ink.

Spacing and jitter#

Control Effect
Spacing Gap between dabs
Jitter Lateral / Linear Randomizes dab position sideways and along the stroke
Count Dabs per step, for sprays

Same stroke, same result. The randomness repeats.

Shape and grain#

Two images define the look. Shape is one dab's silhouette. Grain is a paper texture pressed into every dab. Pick a built-in texture from each section's Texture menu, or wire any image into the Shape or Grain port. Grain Mode sets whether the grain follows the stroke (Moving) or stays pinned to the canvas like real tooth (Texturized). Pencil and Charcoal cut deeper into the grain as you press harder.

Both travel inside the document, so a brush looks the same on any machine.

The picker#

Press B with the brush active, or click the brush at the top of the paint toolbar. It lists the ten defaults plus every Brush node you have exported, and you can type to search. Each paint tool (Brush, Eraser, Smudge) remembers its own pick.

Where to next#