Beginners, I’m talking to you 🙂
Absolutely no judgement here. I too once was where you are; a Procreate newbie who wanted to expand her digital art skills. I immediately loved the flexibility and ease that came with Procreate and was eager to try/buy any brush I could. In the beginning, I relied on a mix of freebies and on the more popular sellers that marketplaces would heavily promote.
Now, before I go further I want to express that I do realize this is all subjective. What one person likes in a digital brush, another person may dislike. This goes for my own brushes as well. However, I believe there are sellers who create brushsets that the majority find useful.
A good brush should make you want to paint a stroke on the [Procreate] canvas. It should help you feel inspired to create art. Does that sound silly? Ok… but let’s face it, digital brushes are like traditional brushes, so in the same way artists like to work with certain brushes, paints and canvases…digital artists feel the same. They want good tools to work with.
So how, as a Procreate beginner, do you decide which brushes to buy? There’s no simple answer but I can certainly give you a few tips.
First, visit sites like Procreate Folio and Gumroad. They both have great communities that offer plenty of paid and free resources. You can also check out marketplaces such as Design Cuts, Etsy and Creative Market. I sell on all three and will admit my favorite site for brushes is Design Cuts. They have a very carefully curated section of Procreate brushsets while Etsy and Creative Market are much more saturated with less quality products.
There’s a catch though. Even on these marketplaces, where you would expect to find higher quality goods, that isn’t always the case. I can’t tell you how many times I was suckered in by really beautiful presentation images while the brushes themselves were quite disappointing. In a lot of cases, a seller who may specialize in digital graphics will venture into the area of creating Procreate brushes. However, it’s only a few cases where those brushes match the quality of the art itself.
What I mean is, being a good artist doesn’t make a seller a specialist in the tools themselves. They certainly can be, but they’re not always going to be. So what happens is you have a digital artist who creates a brushset, draws some really gorgeous art with it and the presentation comes out fantastic. You search the marketplace see the ‘pretty packaging’ and that’s it – you’re sold! However, when you get to the brushes themselves, you quickly find they are not workable for you.
There’s a lot of reasons for this; 1. as a beginner, you may not have the same skill level as them artistic wise
2. because they’re a good artist and can pretty much work with any brush, they may not delve too deeply when creating them and 3. their art style may just be different than yours. In the end, you may be disappointed that you just wasted another $15 bucks. “But…but…the marketplace told me these were great brushes, they sent me email after email promoting how good they were!” Yeah, don’t be fooled by that.
When it comes to marketplaces, they have their favorite sellers. To be fair, these sellers have become popular because they do great work, but that doesn’t mean they will do great work in every category. However, because their other work has brought in sales, the marketplace will promote them ‘till the cows come home. Yet, some of the best brushes I have bought were from less popular sellers.
That being said, there are a few popular digital artists who DO also create great Procreate brushes. Lisa Glanz for one. From my experience, it seems she does think about artists of all skill levels when creating her brushsets. The same goes for Nathan Brown, he really puts thought into his brushes. Some other sellers who’s brushes I found really useful are: SketchWerx, Jenteva Art, Seamless Team & Pixel Buddha…just to name a few. While these sellers are still popular, I don’t see them widely promoted across the board like a lot of others…even though I think they make some of the best brushes for Procreate.
I’ll also toot my horn a bit. I don’t consider myself the finest digital artist by any means but I do meticulously create my brushes to help artists of all skills, especially beginners. I design my brushes to make creating my own art easier, which in turn helps others do the same. You can check out my brushes here:
Lastly, there’s a lot of good brush creators who don’t sell on any marketplaces, only their own websites…so do a google search and see what comes up!
Love to hear your thoughts on which Procreate brushes you find most useful.
Until then…
