Using Watercolor Brushes (Patreon)

A brand new Special Offer has just gone live! Anyone who joins the Master Student tier before November 25th will receive my brand new Watercolor Brushpack. At this moment it's exclusively available for Master Students, in December it will launch in my store. All Master Students have received a dm with a link to download the brushpack. But when you open the brushes, they might be a bit confusing at first, so I want to give a short explanation on how you can use them. But of course I will also be creating a video tutorial in which I will use the watercolor brushes soon!

The brushpack contains 72 brushes in total. One set of 36 brushes with subtle watercolor paper texture and 36 brushes with a more rough watercolor paper texture. It's just the texture that is different, the brushes work the same.

The Base

First step in the process is to create a paper texture, a base for your painting. You can use the Wet Paper Base for this. Use it at a big size and make one stroke covering the entire canvas, so don't lift your pen. On a new layer you can then make a sketch of the subject, using the Watercolor Sketcher.

First Layer of Texture

Once your sketch is finished, you can create a new layer beneath it (and lower the opacity of the sketch if you want to). I made multiple layers of watercolor texture, using the (Wet) Layering brushes. You can create a layer of this paint and then lower the opacity of the layer. You can make multiple layers like this, building up the colors and texture. Just be sure to start off with light colors. With watercolor paintings you work from light to dark, so you don't want to cover too much of your painting with dark colors.

From Big to Small

As always, I am working from big to small here. Mostly using the Round Watery brushes. Remember that your brush will load everytime you lift your pen. So if you want your paints to mix and be transparent, keep your brush on your screen until you run out of paint. To work on the eyes and nose, I created a new layer on top of the paint I had already laid down. I used a Round Watery brush at a small size here, slowly working from light to dark. I also used the Small Brush for little details. Next I made a new layer beneath the details of the eyes and nose again and worked on the fur some more. 

Going Darker

I kept going darker with my colors and worked on the manes and fur. I used the Round Watery brushes at a big size and didn't lift my pen often, to blend the paint nicely and let it dilute. I also used the more opaque looking Loaded Round and Half Loaded to work on the darker manes. And the Small Brush was used for some single hairs.

Final Touches

In the final stage of the painting process I used the Fineliner to add some small light details, like the lights on the eyes and the whiskers. With real life watercolor painting you can use a gel pen or chalk pencil to add light touches to your painting (once it's dry of course 😊). I also added some more texture to the fur by using the Splatter brushes on a separate layer, you can use an eraser or layer mask to reduce the amount of splatter or texture and keep it under control 😉 (Note: all of the splatters and dabs are created from real splatters and dabs I made using real paint) In the end I merged all of my layers and used the Wet Mixer to soften some areas on the outside, mostly at the bottom of the manes, dragging that paint downward. The Wet Mixer brush is a brush that can be used with the normal brush in stead of the smudge tool, but it will work like a smudger.

And that's it! Watercolor brushes are challenging to work with and it might take some time to get used to them, but you can really create some awesome effects! I hope you'll enjoy them as much as me 😊