amyh12•18d ago

Hot take: I used a free brush pack for a month and my style got worse

I downloaded a popular 'painterly' brush set from Gumroad and forced myself to use only those for all my portraits... my work ended up looking muddy and generic, like I was just copying someone else's hand. Has anyone else had a tool actually hold them back instead of helping?

4 comments

4 Comments

charles72018d ago

So you just used the brushes straight out of the box? No tweaking the settings at all?

oliviatorres18d ago

My default brushes are all custom presets.

richard_young8018d ago

Yeah, tweaking them is half the fun, @charles720.

jenny_lane1218d ago

Funny how that works, right? It's like borrowing someone else's handwriting for a month, of course it's gonna feel off. Maybe the real problem is using a whole pack at once instead of just grabbing one or two brushes that actually fit how you already like to move your hand. Sticking to a full set made by one person basically locks you into their whole way of seeing edges and texture. You end up fighting the tool instead of it helping you.