Getting this brush belt meant a lot to me. I was starting as a makeup artist, and this brush belt made me feel like a pro. And that's the only reason why I keep it: sentimental reasons. 205 Synthetic Mascara Fan Brush. For Mascara, Fan-Shaped, Coats/Separates Lashes. EXCLUSIVE FOR MAC LOVER & PRO MEMBERS. Offering more than 100 shades of professional quality cosmetics for All Ages, All Races, and All Genders. Enjoy free shipping and returns on all orders.

1. Mac Artist Brush Holder
2. Mac Artist Brush Set

Adobe Photoshop is by far the most popular software for painting. It comes with many pre-packaged brushes and there’s plenty of tutorials online to help anyone learn.

But even with a mountain of free tutorials and guidance on painting in Photoshop, you may still feel a bit off. More practice helps but sometimes you might want to try some new brushes too.

Digital artists across the world release their brush sets online. Some are free, some cost a small fee, but there’s a tremendous amount of PS brushes online tailor-made for artists.

And I’ll curate all the best options right here for you to peruse. Doesn’t matter if you’re looking to create pencil marks in your digital work, or paint some extra textures into your concept pieces—there is a brush set in here for every purpose under the sun.

1. AaronGriffinArt Brushes

To start off here’s a really unique pack from AaronGriffinArt devoted to Photoshop work.

These brushes still attract a lot of attention with comments as recent as this week, even though the pack was published years ago. Talk about quality.

All of these brushes are used in Aaron’s work so you can get a taste of how they’d look just by skimming his art.

2. Sakimichan Pack

Here’s one more pack you might like that’s also a bit dated, yet still super relevant today.

The brushes come from Sakimichan on DeviantArt and they’re super easy to work with. There’s a total of 54 brushes here offering a variety of scatters, splatters, and general paint brushes.

And this pack was designed with compatibility in mind so it should work in all versions of Photoshop from CS3 up.

3. Real Pencil Brushes

Ah, pencil brushes. These bring the feeling of traditional drawing right into your digital art.

If you want a simple pack to get started with pencil marks check out this one from Soenanda. Totally free and pretty small, but it comes with a handful of brushes mimicking different softness levels and even one for mechanical pencil lead.

All-in-all a nice starter pack for getting more traditional marks in your art.

4. PS Pencil Brush

So this is another pencil set targeting more advanced or intermediate artists. You can still do the same work from the above set, however I prefer this one just for the more realistic textures.

It comes with a preview pack and there’s even instructions on how to install brushes right in the description.

If you’ve never used custom brushes before these instructions will help a lot. And if you’re more familiar with traditional work you’ll be delighted to try these out.

5. Charcoal Brushes(7 Total)

There’s a big difference between graphite and charcoal pencils. They leave very different markings, feel totally different, and have varying grades to their materials.

Not too many artists get into charcoal unless they do a lot of traditional work. With that said, charcoal can look awesome on digital work!

And this brush pack gives you everything to get started with charcoal, without buying any. This way you can attempt some digital work and see how it feels to paint with the real-world style of vine charcoal.

6. Realistic Charcoal Brush

One more charcoal brush pack for good measure, this one from DeviantArt user WojtekFus.

Both packs are totally free and they’re both designed for all modern versions of Photoshop. So I don’t think anyone should have trouble getting these installed.

Biggest challenge will be learning to replicate that realistic feeling in your digital work to create a believable style as if you’re working in a traditional medium.

7. Sylar113 Pack

Now this pack is definitely in my favorites list because it comes with so much variety for digital artwork.

Creator Sylar113 first released this pack a few years ago and it’s still super relevant today. You’ll find over 70 brushes all with different presets and varying styles.

Some are even combined from other free packs to create one “mega compilation” of digital brushes for artists. Certainly a nice starter pack or something to experiment with in your work.

8. Pearlpencil Winter 2012

From chalky lines to dual pencil markings, this pack has a little bit of everything.

Its strength comes from the generic style of each brush meaning you can format the final output any way you want. There is some incredibly cool stuff you can do by altering settings in the PS brushes panel.

That’s what I like most about this set: the ability to customize the final output to look great and suit your needs.

9. Mateu7’s Ink Brushes

How could I write about Photoshop brushes and not mention ink?

In this free set you’ll find 10 custom inking brushes made by Mateu7 on DeviantArt. These designs actually vary a lot from very loose and blotty to more straight-lined or even scattered marks.

Ink can take a lot of forms and that’s why the variety in this pack can be so useful. Especially for artists who prefer working in ink.

10. Concept Art Brush Pack

You knew there would be at least one concept art pack in this list. And let me say this one’s a doozy.

DA user SoldatNordsken released this pack as a freebie on his website Evenant.com.

It does require an email submission to get the pack, but it’s totally free and you can always unsubscribe from the emails right afterwards.

Inside the pack is a tremendous library of brushes for foliage, snow, atmospheric effects, and so much more.

These are professional-quality brushes that can really help you create professional level concept art. Absolutely worth checking out if you’re interested.

11. Environment Brushes

For another related pack you might check out this environment set from DA user TheEchoDragon.

Again these can be used strictly for concept art, but could also be used for background painting or layout design.

Ultimately the brushes you have can never replace a poor skillset. You should always strive to improve your digital work through practice.

Now with that said, if you want to do a lot of environment stuff this pack is totally worth a try.

12. The Loish Brushset

By now almost every digital artist should know of Loish. She’s a wildly famous artist from the Netherlands with a massive online following(for good reason!)

A few years back she released this custom brush set with all of the brushes that she uses for her work. Now it’s practically a staple for anyone who wants to mimic her style.

Loish does some really nice stuff and if you’re not familiar with her work definitely have a look at her Instagram and see what you think.

13. TsaoShin Brushes

While this pack is fairly small, it’s just big enough to tackle some digital painting projects and get them done super clean.

TsaoShin released this 4-pack of brushes as “basic brushes” all used in their artwork. It’s designed entirely for Photoshop and should support all major versions from CS5 up.

You may be looking for something with a bit more variety, but if you don’t want to clutter your brush palette these 4 make a very nice addition. Oh and they’re totally free.

14. Colored Pencil Brush Set

Custom brushes in the style of colored pencils. Seems like a solid idea yet I had a pretty difficult time finding sets like this.

Thankfully I stumbled onto a free pack courtesy of Brusheezy and creator Jeremiah Shaw. You can download these brushes and use them however you like, assuming attribution for any commercial work.

Brusheezy includes details on every license for their brush packs so if you’re ever unsure if something is free just look for the “license details” link on the page.

15. Art Pack 1

I’m a huge fan of Gumroad for anything art related. Tutorials, video demos, brushes, plugins, everything.

And this pack from Sparth does not disappoint with 30 custom brushes tailor-made for all forms of digital painting. I find that these work best with realist paintings such as concept art pieces or photobashed paintings.

Only downside here is the price tag. It does seem a little steep for the amount you get, although the quality is pretty high so if you like these styles it’s worth the price.

16. Basic Digital Paint Set

Not all content on Gumroad comes with a price tag. This brush set is one such example with a default of $0 to download(although you can tip).

Creator ramstudioscomics released this brush set online for free as it was their very first set when starting to paint digitally. That makes it an excellent choice for newbies who are hesitant to work with Photoshop defaults.

There’s a little bit of everything here from chalking effects to comic brushes, some hair & fur textures, blending brushes, anything you could possibly want.

17. Photoshop Essentials

Here’s one more really nice freebie set designed exclusively for modern Photoshop artists.

This comes with 22 brush presets tailored for Photoshop CS6 & CC. Inside you’ll find a massive collection of brushes, far too many to list here, but you can see a full list on the Gumroad page.

Most of these brushes attempt to copy textures such as pencils, watercolors, oils, pastels, and even some brushes for storyboarding and web comics.

18. Ink & Tones

Digital ink tones are a classic texture for comics. If you’re trying to hit a similar look in your artwork this is a pack worth nabbing.

This comes with a paltry $1 price tag so it’s worth the expense if you do a lot of comic work. Inside you’ll find over 40 brushes with 31 of them being screentone brushes.

The others include inkers and tech pens for doing your own comics or manga work. Certainly a powerful pack for artists who want to create their own mangas from scratch.

19. The Big 50 Pack

A massive set of 50 brushes all designed for Photoshop CC.

This is perhaps one of the largest and most technical brush packs in this list with a ton of textures mixed in. Rocks, tree bark, grass, clouds, there’s a little of everything that you’d expect to find in a detailed brush pack.

There’s also a handful of blending and smudging brushes that you can use to restyle your artwork and get it looking tip-top.

20. Ahmed Aldoori PS Brushes

Artist Ahmed Aldoori published these free brushes on Gumroad as a companion to his YouTube channel.

This is an artist with so many incredible tutorials and painting videos online, all with a very specific style that works well in digital form.

If you’re familiar with Aldoori’s work I highly recommend this brush pack. Or even if you aren’t familiar and just wanna try this out, why not? After all it’s free.

21. Natural Drawing and Painting Media

Moving back into more traditional media we’ve got this free brush pack designed by Christine Garner.

For this one you can get a little bit of every medium: pencils, markers, oils, pastels, gouache, and a few others.

Plus this ABR file was designed for Photoshop CS3 so it should work in every newer version as well.

22. Shiyoon’s Ink Brush Set

As far as ink brushes go, I think this pack might take the cake.

Disney character designer Shiyoon Kim released these brushes on their Gumroad page as an example of what’s possible given the right pack. This does come at a steeper price point of $10 but you get a handful of custom ink brushes that are perfect for animation artists.

Actually, pretty much any digital artist could find use in these brushes. Yet at that price point I recommend it specifically for anyone who wants to copy Shiyoon’s style.

23. Nwain Photoshop Brushes

You may(or may not) know of the webcomic Nwain. This is an online webcomic designed with animation effects and some pretty nice compositions.

Well this free brush pack comes from the creator Terrana Cliff who wanted to release these for free to the art community.

They’re all designed for Photoshop and this is the complete set used for each comic in the Nwain series. A great freebie for artists and super valuable to anyone who wants to make their own webcomic.

24. 1000+ Manga Brush Megapack

I could go on & on about this brush pack, but I think the images speak for themselves.

Set at a price of $25 this pack includes over one thousand brushes made exclusively for Adobe Photoshop. Talk about some attention to detail!

And this pack is specifically designed as manga & anime brushes so they’re great for artists who often work in that art style.

25. Cale Atkinson’s Preset Brushes #1

Cale Atkinson is an artist & illustrator with a very unique style. It’s got to be one of my favorite styles out there and his work really brings on a life of its own.

Well if you’ve ever wanted to see how he does it, now you can with this free pack of tool preset brushes.

These work a little differently than regular brushes and you should learn about tool presets if you’re not familiar. But these are incredibly powerful for digital artwork and the pack is 100% free for life.

26. Drew Green’s Cartooning Brushes

Interested in making your own webcomics, storyboards, or goofy cartoons?

Well if you wanna draw funny stuff then you’ll want brushes to match that style.

Enter Drew Green and his amazing cartoon brush set. This does come with a price of $6 but you get some very unique brushes that feel like a mixture of traditional mediums and digital painting brushes.

Inside is a pack of 27 original brushes along with 10 bonus brushes, all designed to work in Photoshop CS4 or higher. Check it out and see what you think.

27. Photoshop Pencils

You can find a lot of handy assets on Cubebrush. It’s a curated art marketplace where artists can release their assets online for a set price.

This means there’s a much larger variety to pick from, but also more volatility in pricing. I searched a while to find the best brushes on here and one of my favorites is this $2 pencil brush set.

It’s designed with over 80 brushes all made for Photoshop CC.

Absolutely perfect for more basic pencil work, or just for practicing your digital animation art like storyboarding, character designs, or rough sketches.

28. RM Perfectionist Brushes

Here’s a set that comes at a much higher price tag, but it’s also designed for both designers and artists who use Photoshop.

Inside is a set of ABR and TPL files with brushes for almost everything: watercolors, markers, oils, air brushes, you name it.

These have all been expertly fine-tuned to run with digital tablets and should work especially well on Wacoms. But if you can’t justify the price tag no worries: there are plenty of free alternatives all throughout this post.

29. Essential CS5 Brushes

While the title of this set may seem like it’s for older users, the brushes hold up remarkably well in newer versions of Photoshop.

After all: digital painting isn’t changing much regardless of what software you choose.

Inside this bundle you’ll get more than 100 brushes all organized into categories like smudge, sketch, paint, ink, and a bunch more.

Well worth checking out and seeing if you could use these in any future work.

30. Marker Brushes

When it comes to art markers I’ve always been a fan of Copics. They offer the strongest color quality and the longest shelf life, plus they just “feel” like art markers.

That’s exactly what you’ll find in this pack of Photoshop brushes built around marker designs.

They’re meant to emulate markers on paper as much as possible, all while working digitally. These brushes support Photoshop CS5 and higher and come with a hefty number in one pack.

Plus they come with only a $2 price so it’s not too shabby if you’re looking for realistic art marker brushes.

31. Ballpoint Pen Brushes

Here’s another very specific drawing instrument turned digital.

I know many artists love to work in ballpoint pens. They give a sense of solidity and a level of darkness that you just can’t find in other drawing mediums.

If you want to bring that feeling into your digital work then check out this pack of ballpoint pen brushes all made for Photoshop users.

This comes from David Schmelling, the same artist who created the marker brushes above. So the price point and the quality is similar here.

32. Sketching For Photoshop

Sketching is a very personal exercise and it’s easy to get finicky with line quality. That means you’ll really want some great brushes if you do a lot of sketching digitally.

I’m a fan of the many free packs listed earlier, but if you want to go premium check out this sketch-focused brush pack.

It comes from MaCaLabs and it’s one of the few brushes that comes with a tool presets file. This means you can upload brushes and change the default pressure settings to get them working exactly as the artist intended.

33. Fur, Hair & Grass Brushes

There’s good reason to paint custom textures yourself. Stuff like fur and hair can come out better if you work at it section by section.

That said, many artists would prefer custom texture brushes to save time and energy.

That’s where this awesome brush pack comes in to save the day.

Inside you’ll find 52 brushes all made to lay out believable grass, fluffy fur, and realistic hair. Not to mention every brush comes in high definition so they can be resized up to 5000px and still look incredible.

34. Handdrawn Watercolors(180+ Brushes)

Finding high-quality watercolor brushes can be a challenge. Usually they’re lumped together with other brushes in the “big packs” listed earlier.

However if you just want an exclusive set of watercolor brushes look no further than this pack by Favete Art.

It comes with over 180 brushes all designed by hand, all made to clone the effects of watercolors on the digital screen. By far one of the best sets in this list if you’re a big fan of watercolor textures.

35. RM Watercolor 2018

I figure it’s worth throwing in one more awesome watercolor pack into the list, just in case you want some variety.

Inside this pro watercolor pack you’ll find both the ABR file with the brushes and the TPL file for tool presets. This set does come at a slightly higher price than the one above, however I also see this pack updated year-over-year with new brushes and new presets.

Again, worth checking out if you’re into the watercolor texture. Might not be for everyone but certainly a very nice pack of brushes for artists.

36. RM Natural Oil 2018

Moving into oil brushes you might also like this set from the same creator Roman Melentyev.

Again this is part of his “pro brushes” set and it gets updated with new settings each year. That means you’ll also likely need the newest version of Photoshop if you upgrade, however many brush packs are backwards compatible so you can always ask the creator for more info.

For this pack you’ll find a bunch of custom oil brush styles. Bristles, soft brushes, dry brushes, some plain styles and many textures styles too.

Many of these can even work for concept art paintings if you’re going for a more realist style.

37. Basic Oil Brushes

Most artists prefer to go with brushes that are cheaper(or free) whenever possible.

So if you want an oil brush pack that’s a little cheaper have a look at this set by Grzegorz Rutkowski.

It comes at only $5 and it has quite a few brushes to pick from. Not to mention the style is flawless for painting just like oil in your digital work.

Even some of the free oil brushes listed earlier cannot hit this level of detail. So I think this is totally worth the price if you want to create oil-styled artwork in Photoshop.

38. Four Feature Sets + Goodies

Within this 4-pack of brushes you’ll actually get a handful of different brushes all categorized together, and a few extras to boot.

From my count there’s over 40 different brushes along with free video guides on how to paint with them. No other brush pack has goodies like this!

You’ll also find completed works in PSD format along with JPEGs of the final designs. This way you can see exactly what these brushes can do, how the artist paints them using layers, and even follow along to create the same artwork yourself.

This does come at a larger price of $30 but for everything you get, I’d say that’s still quite a steal.

39. Pennydoth’s Marble Texture Brushes

If you draw a lot of stone or marble interiors then you’ll love these 3 texture brushes that include small, medium, and large marble grain textures.

Of course, you could also get creative and use them for something completely different. Especially since the textures are really cool in their own right.

Use these brushes to add movement and grit to your concept art or comic book drawings. And think of these as a different way to shade or highlight your work, or even try layering colors to get more dimensionality. Play around!

40. Portrait Brushes(16 Total)

Sometimes with digital artwork you really need specialized tools.

These 16 brushes are the perfect tools for drawing lifelike or stylized portraits if that’s the kinda thing you specialize in(or want to).

You’ll find amazing stuff in here for drawing, coloring, and texturing pretty much everything about your fellow human’s faces: skin, eyes, hair, lips, as well as adding perfect little subtle hints of detail to make your artwork pop.

If you’re at all interested in drawing Photoshop portraits then make sure to take a peek at this awesome brush pack.

41. CHEAT Brushes(Complete Set)

Okay, this one’s going to blow your mind.

These brushes are basically stamps of generic male and female heads in a variety of different angles and poses.

Which means you can simply click and BAM. You’ve got a head.

Pretty cool, right?

They’re also modifiable to easily fit your style.

I’m sure you can think of all kinds of uses for this pack. But these brushes are obviously awesome for quickly rendering people in your scenes or for quick costume designs so you don’t have to mess around with drawing faces and heads if you don’t want to.

They’re also great if you need a lot of people at once in a quick scene, like with storyboarding.

42. Comic/Manga Brushes(100 Set)

One of the most important yet overlooked parts of comics and manga work is grey tones and all the textures that can come along with them.

In this pack you’ll find 100 brushes for shading and quickly rendering grey tones in all different values and textures, whether you’re into classic dots and crosshatching or if you want something new. Think like broken glass-sorta textures, or straight repeating lines or even leafy patterns.

Shading is often the most time-consuming and least fun part of drawing your own comics. This pack can save you some serious time to help get your ideas on the screen faster.

43. Eye & Lip Highlights

Adding highlights to eyes and lips is a quick yet easy way to make your artwork really stand out.

Save even more time with this brush pack that allows you to add dewy, glossy highlights in seconds.

You can use this for human portraits, creatures, even animals to add life and interest to any portrait.

Don’t neglect the most important parts of your portraits and character renderings!

44. RM Smoke & Fire FX

Here’s another amazing time-saving brush pack.

This pack will allow you to quickly draw all kinds of flames, smoke, steam, and clouds, which is perfect if you’re illustrating a blazing inferno or just adding a few wisps of campfire smoke to a landscape painting.

Think of the possibilities.

You can instantly add steam to a stove pot, clouds to a sky, cigarette smoke to a character drawing…I could go on but you get it.

That’s the beauty of brush packs like this. They allow you to easily include elements you might not have bothered with otherwise.

45. Organic Brush Set

This is the perfect set of brushes for drawing lifelike animals, fantasy creatures, and humans.

Here you’ll find all kinds of brushes for creating organic shapes, texturing skin, and adding details like veins, tendons, hair, and lots more.

If you do a lot of creature concept art then make sure to check this out and give it a try.

These kinds of brushes can add a whole new level of life and realism to your work!

46. SephirothArt Brushset vol.4

This is a collection of one artist’s personal favorite brushes.

I love packs like this because they tend to be really comprehensive and contain just about everything you need to create your best work, or at least a lot of variety in your work.

If you love what you see here and want to try emulating some of this work, definitely grab this set!

You’ll find lots of different sketching and texturing brushes that’ll have you covered whether you’re sketching outside, coloring people, shading objects, or highlighting cartoons. Take a look!

47. Organic Shape-making Brushset

Sometimes the hardest part of drawing organic shapes is actually making them look organic and not planned or carefully drawn (like they actually are).

This pack of over 30 brushes will help you quickly and effortlessly create natural-looking organic shapes.

You’ll find brushes here will all kinds of different textures and line qualities, and many that are perfect for rendering certain kinds of shapes and objects.

This pack is perfect for artists who draw a lot of landscapes, plants, creatures, and less-tangible things like smoke and clouds.

Enjoy!

48. Game Art Brushes Presets

Let’s be real: game art is huge. And this pack is specifically designed to help you create stunning game art, concept art, and illustrations for your own projects or others.

These assets are especially amazing for designing characters and costumes.

Inside you’ll find 37 brushes and blending tools all with presets.

Note that all of these tools were created by industry professionals from Gunship Revolution, an art studio that’s worked with companies like Disney, Mattel, Fox, Warner Brothers, and lots more.

49. Greg Rutkowski Brushes

This is a huge pack of 209 brushes and 17 mixer brushes, which is plenty to get you started in Photoshop or add a new layer of innovation and fun to your Photoshop art.

New brush packs are a great way to change things up and build your art skills.

There’s a wide variety here so you’ll get a chance to try a lot of new things pretty quickly. And maybe even find better ways to do things you’ve already been doing in Photoshop for years.

50. 74 Handcrafted Splatter Brushes

Nothing adds texture, grit, and whimsy to an art piece like a little paint splatter.

This pack of 74 splatter brushes was created with real acrylic ink on paper, so it’s incredibly lifelike while still feeling digital.

You’ll find everything here from heavy chunky ink splatters to light little spritzes. And everything in between.

There are textures to mimic splatters from different kinds of brushes and even different sources.

Use them to add a touch of gore to a battle scene, or a fun texture to your graphics. Just go to town, you’ve got my permission!

51. Sumi-e Brushes Version 2

This brush set beautifully mimics the look of sumi ink and the way they flow and even bleed into the paper.

Use these to add a sense of moodiness to your concept art or illustrations.

Fun tip: play with the opacity to create the appearance of watered-down inks.

52. Vintage Woodblocks

Here you’ll get 50 unique brushes designed to look like vintage woodblock prints.

Use them to add a scratchy, weathered, old-fashioned vibe to any piece of digital art.

These brushes were made with actual ink, paper, and wood blocks, so they come really close to the real thing.

This is a quick way to create some grunge and drama in your next digital painting.

And you’ll fall in love with this brush set immediately.

53. Photoshop Inking Brushes

So this set is comprised of 12 brushes that are perfect for inking cartoons, illustrations, and sketches. A bit small but it’s not always about the number; even just 1 good brush can change your entire workflow.

These brushes mimic all kinds of pens and markers for different line qualities and moods to enhance the theme of your drawings.

You’ll find tools for thin, smooth lines as well as bold, scratchy lines (and everything else you can think of).

54. Water Brushes

Water can be really tricky and time-consuming to draw by hand.

So grab this pack of brushes to instantly create splashes, bubbles, drops, sprays, mist, and just about any other form of water you can think of in your drawings and concept art.

This set is indispensable for scenes with bodies of water, bubbles, rain, interiors, or anywhere else water could be present (which, honestly, is any scene at all).

You’ll get 43 high-res water brushes in this kit. And you’ll probably use them all the time.

55. Splatter FX(100 Brushes)

You can never have too many splatter brushes, right?

In this set of 100 unique splatter brushes you’ll find all kinds of large textures as well as fine spatters with room to change your brush size to almost any resolution.

And it comes with all kinds of different opacities and patterns to play with.

You can add a few bold ink drops to your piece or cover the whole thing in a fine mist.

The applications for these brushes are endless, and they’re a lot of fun to use.

56. Manga Shonen Pack

Any manga artists in the house? Well this pack contains over 500 brushes and screentones that are designed for drawing realistic Japanese-style manga.

You’ll find a huge variety of lines, textures, tones, patterns, and more in this pack, and this might end up being the only brush pack you use.

This really contains everything you need to create amazing Japanese artwork and lots of fun new brushes to experiment with. Who knows, you might find some new favorites and add a whole new element to your style.

BTW when you buy this pack, you’ll get a coupon to upgrade to a 1500+ brush megapack as well. Which is a screamin’ deal if you ask me.

57. RH BlendPaint Tools

So this set of mixer brushes aims to replicate the seamless and intuitive experience of the old Painter brushes, but for Photoshop!

Artist Rico Holmes has put in the time to create the perfect mixer brushes so that once you start, you won’t have to tweak a thing to get the smooth, beautiful color blending you’re looking for.

58. Nebula Brushes

These 16 gorgeous brushes allow you to instantly draw stunning space scenes by adding nebulae, galaxies, and all kinds of other space-y stuff to your piece.

These brushes are also super high-res so you can zoom on one a smaller part of any brush to use as a background, texture, or to just add some stars and space dust to a piece.

This one’s lots of fun for sure. Especially if you’re into drawing space and celestial bodies.

59. Wooshes

These brushes are exactly what they sound like: “whooshes”, or broad painterly strokes to add some fun and whimsy to your Photoshop pieces.

You’ll get 16 high resolution brushes you can use for creating all sorts of fun textures and shapes in your drawings.

These brushes are so much fun, you might even want to create some art pieces using only these brushes just to play with and see what comes out.

60. Scifi Brushes

Here’s another super useful cheat pack for you to fall in love with.

You’ll get more than 540 brushes that allow you to create complex-looking sci-fi machinery in seconds.

With just a few clicks you’ll have an awesome-looking ship, vehicle, weapon, or any other machine you might need… totally complete with buttons, screws, and switches.

This is a great resource for coming up with new sci-fi tech stuff or adding some tech to a sci-fi scene with a different focal point.

61. Ink Splatter Brushes

This is a pack of splatter brushes to quickly add color, texture, and an ink/watercolor feel to any piece you design in Photoshop.

Layer these into you art to add depth and movement without a lot of extra work.

Also try playing with the opacity for even better layering. Or use the brushes straight out of the box to get more depth and color into your illustrations.

62. Foliage & Grass

Grass, leaves, and bushes are a big part of environment painting works.

But they take forever to draw by hand, and some texture brushes just don’t cut it.

If you’re feeling stuck then try this pack of over 60 brushes+settings to quickly add swathes of natural-looking grass and foliage to your landscape pieces.

This is great for speedpainting as well as working on lengthy finished concept pieces.

You’ll find brushes for subtle, more suggested greenery as well as highly detailed and painterly brushes for drawing close-up plantlife.

63. Happy Pack

This pack will equip you with 25 radical brushes to add some smiles into your painting sessions.

You’ll get one handy airbrush tool and a few dozen other texture brushes for rendering backgrounds and atmosphere, shadow and light, and to add grungy textures.

You’ll probably use these brushes all the time because they’re extremely versatile and can find a place in nearly any digital painting.

Ultimately this is a nice basic texture pack to cover most of your bases in Photoshop concept art and speedpainting.

64. Deharme Figure Pack

If you do a lot of figure painting then this brush pack will take you a long, long way.

You’ll get everything you need for sketching, coloring, blending, and adding detail to your figure drawings in a painterly, acrylic or oil painting style.

Inside you can find over 40 brushes for digital drawings + paintings as well as some specialized brushes for facial details like eyelashes, lips, and even facial hair.

This pack is super useful for anyone who draws a lot of figures, portraits, or character concept drawings.

65. Painted Grunge Brushes(60 Total)

There’s no such thing as too many grunge texture brushes.

This pack is perfect for adding all kinds of texture to your concept art.

You’ll get a wide variety of textures here from really fine-grained texture to much “chunkier” stamps.

Throw these textures on your drawings of buildings, machinery, landscapes, even costumes. You can also use them to add atmosphere and a dark mood to your piece almost instantly.

66. Nose Brushes(150+ Total)

This is the brush pack you never knew you needed.

We usually think of eyes as the most difficult part of a portrait, but a close runner-up is the nose.

This massive pack of over 150 brushes allows you to instantly stamp a nose on your sketch or concept drawing or cartoon.

How cool is that?

You’ll find tons of nose brushes for humans and animals, and they’ll definitely work for fantasy creatures.

This pack is perfect if you don’t want to spend a lot of time worrying about the face on your cartoon or character drawing. This allows you to practically skip the nose part and move on to the more creative parts of the piece.

67. Matt’s Art Brush Set

This awesome yet comprehensive brush set contains over 100 brushes to emulate all kinds of different mediums like pencil, pen, pastel, watercolor, charcoal, and acrylic or oil paints.

You’ll also get some bonus brushes for adding rocks, trees, clouds, and foliage.

As if that weren’t enough, you’ll also get plenty of texture and splatter brushes as well so this pack is really diverse and really big.

If you don’t want to mess around with cheat brushes or really specialized brush sets then this will work beautifully whether you’re creating digital paintings, concept art, manga, or storyboards.

68. Drippity Drop Paint Drips

I have to say this brush pack gets the award for the funniest name in this entire list.

And it’s great for adding some fun paint or ink droplets to your piece.

Fiddle with the opacity to add some atmospheric texture to your pieces or use these brushes to add some whimsy and color to graphic designs.

This is a really simple specialized brush pack with a lot of practical applications. So it’s a good one to have around if you need to change up the mood of your piece in a hurry.

69. Versatile Brush Set

This brush pack is exactly what the name says: an incredibly versatile set of brushes with lots of different stroke qualities.

Use these to sketch, color, shade, and highlight a complete art piece.

Or use them with other brushes to create a dynamic portrait or landscape, or any other piece that suits your fancy.

70. Starter Pack For Photoshop

Creator and founder of Cubebrush Marc Brunet released his own Photoshop brush sets onto the marketplace and they’re pretty darn nice.

This is a cheaper pack made specifically for newcomers just getting into digital painting, or artists switching from another program into Photoshop.

Inside you’ll find 14 brushes that cover the gamut from painting to drawing and everything inbetween. So for the $3 price it’s actually got a lot to offer.

However if you are brand new to Photoshop I suggest starting with free brushes first. Get used to the brushes panel and how to use the software, then worry about paying for premium brush packs.

71. Advanced Painter’s PS Brushes

On the flip side we have this advanced brush set also designed by Marc.

This one comes with 25 different brushes and they’re designed with far more intricate details. If you already feel comfortable painting your own characters or environments from scratch, then you’ll feel comfortable working with this pack.

There’s something in here for every subject matter from skin brushes to fabrics and general dust/scatter brushes.

But don’t feel like you need a pro level of artistic experience before picking this up. Anyone can work with these brushes and start painting fast; but you’ll need a background in digital painting & general artistic skills to really craft pro-level work.

72. Character Design Brushes

Photoshop is the best software to make your own character art.

Yes you can always use the default brushes and work with what you’ve got. But why not start with a pack tailored to the character design process?

I cannot think of a better resource than this massive 315+ brush pack full of many different styles. There’s brushes for inking, storyboarding, manga drawing, sketching, oils, pastels, everything.

The full list of brushes can be found on the product page so check that out and see if you could use these in your work.

I know this is a big list so it can feel overwhelming. But you can always start by skimming the list to check out any brushes that catch your eye.

Try to avoid downloading a ton at once since you’ll likely waste time jumping between everything. It’s better to test one brush set at a time until you find something you really like.

Digital art software gets better and better each year.

The right software can help you paint faster and feel better about your artwork. Each program handles brush strokes and color blending differently, and the price tags vary from expensive to free.

Adobe Photoshop still reigns supreme as an all-round industry standard for digital artists. Yet there’s always new software coming out to compete against Adobe’s throne.

Choosing your art software is no longer about the biggest features, but rather finding an application that suits your specific needs as an artist.

Beginners who just want to practice are better off choosing a free program compared to professionals who want to learn software for an industry job. If your goal is to work for a game studio as a concept artist then you’ll probably have a different set of goals.

In this post we’ll take an in-depth look at 7 of the most popular programs for digital drawing & painting by comparing their features and seeing how they stack up.

But if you’re in a hurry here’s a quick overview to help you decide:

• Professional Choice: Adobe Photoshop
• Free Choice: Krita
• Budget Choice: Clip Studio Paint

If you need a bit more info on these programs just keep reading.

Adobe Photoshop

Price: $9.99/mo
Platforms: Mac, Windows

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular and widely used software for digital art.

It’s feature-heavy, regularly updated, and you can use it to create everything from concept thumbnails to comic book pages or even photobashed pieces.

Photoshop started as an image-editing program for photographers. Over time it slowly became a staple for many other industries, digital art included.

With this software you have a huge variety of painting tools, brushes, filters, plugins, and layer styles.

It’s an industry standard for all digital artists across the entertainment industry because it just works. If you want a career in video games, animation, feature films, or any general production studio, knowledge of Photoshop goes a long way.

The learning curve is pretty steep here. If you are a beginner you may feel overwhelmed by all the options and get lost in technical aspects of the program. But once you’ve learned the basics, your imagination is the limit!

You can do anything in whatever style you choose and edit photos to boot!

Being the most popular software for creatives artists, there’s a mass of Photoshop tutorials available online. Adobe even released a series of up-to-date free tutorials which will take you from beginner to expert level.

Mac Artist Brush Holder

If you ever have a problem or question on anything, a quick Google search will get you a video answer or helpful forum post.

Concept artists like Photoshop’s custom brushes and often create their own. Detailed layer settings, regular updates, and a sleek user interface are the driving force behind Photoshop’s continued popularity.

You can rotate your canvas naturally to mimic the rotation of paper. And you can setup grids and rulers for complex scenes, or even bring in 3D objects to paint over. PSD files(Photoshop’s native file format) play well with other Adobe programs and this file type is an industry standard.

That means you can import PSDs into almost any other art software without a hitch. GIMP and Krita both accept PSD files along with many other programs.

This is why many artists combine Photoshop with other painting software. Depending on the workflow you’re going for you could do your concept and lineart in something like Clip Studio Paint, then bring it to Photoshop for coloring and final touch-ups.

Other digital art software doesn’t try to replace Photoshop but instead tries to improve on the interface for specific types of art(ex: comics, storyboards, environment paintings, etc).

Once you’ve signed up for a Creative Cloud membership you get a free, non-conditional seven-day trial version of Photoshop. This offer applies to Adobe’s other software as well. If you like Photoshop and want to buy it, there are four purchase plans to choose from.

The cheapest is the Photographers package which is $9.99(only available annually) and it includes Lightroom CC. If you want to buy a monthly plan you can get Photoshop for $29.99 a month.

If you want to go the extra mile and get the rest of Adobe’s software, the entire suite costs $74.99 monthly(or annual for $49.99 p/m).

Bonus Tip: Students 13 years and older get a 60% discount on the full Adobe suite plan!

People love Photoshop for its versatility and wealth of free knowledge online. Adobe has thrown millions of dollars into development so Photoshop isn’t going anywhere.

It’s a solid, professional choice for aspiring digital artists and concept artists.

Corel Painter

Price: $350
Platforms: Mac, Windows

Corel Painter is characterized by painterly brush strokes and a traditional artist’s feel to the interface.

Painter is for artists who love loose, messy brushwork and want to capture the beauty of traditional mediums on a digital canvas. It comes standard with 900 brushes covering every possible situation you could imagine.

As you might guess from the name, Corel Painter is focused on painting. But this should be great for artists who only want software to draw or paint digitally.

It has a 2.5D brush toolset that mimics real-world brushes giving you full control over the final “style” of your work.

Painter has been a serious alternative to Photoshop for several years and is the company always listens to user requests. They’ve been working hard to add new features every year and have added a bunch of artist-suggested tools into their latest release.

For example, some users complained of UI sensitivity and slow response times. Those issues were fixed with the 2019 version along with an entire UI design overhaul.

Icons were redesigned to be more intuitive and the interface was changed to a darker theme.

Among all the new features with that version, the most celebrated was the pinned color wheel.

You can position the color wheel wherever you like on the screen giving an instant look at color options without swatches. This spectral feature means you can work in detail without the circular brush icon obscuring your view.

In Painter’s web series “Paint like Bob Ross” you can learn how to paint digital landscapes in 30 minutes using their brushes—a great introduction to conceptualizing landscapes for beginners.

The software is feature heavy and beginners might still feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of brush options and settings. But Corel is worth learning because it is another trusted industry staple among character designers, concept artists, and visual development artists.

Corel Painter has been around since 1992 and you can find an extensive library of free tutorials on their website. Or if you search on YouTube I’m sure you can find plenty of free tutorials there as well.

You won’t find as many resources compared to Photoshop. But Corel Painter is still a beast in the concept art world, or just the digital painting world in general, making it an awesome choice for hobbyists or newbies just picking up digital art for the first time.

As of this writing, a brand new copy of Corel Painter costs $350 making it an expensive once-off purchase. Although you can get a free 30-day trial to demo the software and see if it’s right for you.

Krita

Price: Free
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux

Krita is a free open source digital painting program designed for cartoonists, illustrators, concept artists, and pretty much all digital artists.

The software was initially developed as a general image editing competitor to Photoshop but focused their efforts on digital painting starting in 2009. The Krita community donates monthly to the software efforts helping it to stay free and funding development of new features

If you have a background in some other digital art software(Photoshop for example) then Krita’s tools will be a little familiar and a little not-so-familiar.

Whether you’re switching or just getting into Krita it’s worth the time to watch a few tutorials to find out how everything works.

Krita hasn’t released many official tutorial videos but they have created detailed documentation online. If it’s your first venture into digital art then start off learning about the basic UI and toolsets.

Use the pop-up pallet to select your brushes, erasers, and colors intuitively. All other tools are stored in the panels to the left and right. Krita supports PSD files so that you can switch between Photoshop and Krita with ease.

And there’s a ton of freebies online like free brush packs that mimic everything from charcoal to watercolors and so much more. The beauty of Krita is the free price tag and the immensely supportive community around this software.

Krita has been criticized by some professional artists for its lag, seemingly unintuitive design, and uneven brush softness. Although the criticism has merit, the program’s core features work well and you will learn them with practice.

Also worth noting this has to be the absolute best choice for anyone on a Linux machine. Photoshop does not support Linux outside of a virtual emulator but Krita can run natively in any Linux distro.

This is a huge +1 for Krita since it’s really the best digital painting alternative for our Linux & Unix friends.

If you don’t have the cash to burn on digital art programs Krita is the perfect choice.

Use the program while you save up some money to grab another program. Or just stick with Krita and use it free for life! Many professional artists like David Revoy create all of their work with Krita and their stuff looks amazing.

Best thing about Krita is that it’s simple for beginners to learn and it doesn’t confuse you with a ton features or fancy tools. Krita’s purpose is digital painting and that’s precisely what it does well.

Clip Studio Paint

Price: $49
Platforms: Mac, Windows

Clip Studio Paint is the most popular software for creating comics and manga artwork.

Clip Studio Paint was originally named Manga Studio but changed names in 2013. It originated in Japan as specialist software for manga, illustration, and animators.

The program has long been a worldwide affordable alternative to Photoshop for digital artists but got more recognition with the name change.

The most notable drawing difference between Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop is the brush tool. In Clip Studio the brush tool instantly corrects any minor wobble you make while drawing on a tablet, leaving you with smooth clean linework.

Clip Studio is optimized for comic book creation and has various tools to speed up the process.

A canvas layout tool makes paneling quick with perspective rulers and a library of predefined formats. The pen tool lets you to work in a versatile vector format which means your creations can be scalable without quality loss.

In the most recent release there’s a new library of 3D objects and posable models. This is useful for concept artists who like to use references to get poses down quickly.

You can drop in a 3D model, pose it using an intuitive joint system, change the camera angle, make the character fat or thin, and choose between genders. After you’ve drawn over it you can use that same model’s shading as a reference for lighting.

Then when you’re done just delete it. Easy-peasy.

With CSP your art will always have a crisp digital finish as the software doesn’t strive for a traditional look. Although it’s possible to give your brush strokes a blended texture using brushes, Clip Studio Paint is not designed to mimic traditional mediums.

The standard version of Clip Studio Paint also comes with some very basic animation features. You can quickly test character movement over 24 frames without the annoyance of switching programs. But this is not really the best software for animation so it works best in conjunction with other programs for that purpose.

Now Clip Studio Paint comes in two versions: PRO(standard) and EX(full-featured).

Unless you’re planning on putting all of your projects through Clip Studio Paint and creating various manga & comic books, you’ll probably be happy with the PRO version. The EX edition has only a few extra features that would benefit expert users.

EX lets you save manga & comic pages in a ‘book’ which acts like one editable file. You can then bulk save them for printing which shaves off a ton of time and organizational effort.

The animation feature also gets an upgrade with EX and you can create an unlimited number of frames(instead of the standard 24).

EX comes with filters for 3D assets too turning them black and white for easier integration into your scenes.

Generally speaking, the PRO version is the same and EX minus the above features. It’s unlikely you’ll need those features as a digital painter or concept artist. Only serious comic and manga artists would find the EX features useful.

Try out either version with a free 30-day trial of both PRO and EX versions. If you don’t like it then just move on. The free version does give plenty to toy with so you’ll know whether you like CSP or don’t.

And it’s worth mentioning that the PRO edition is an affordable option at only $49 flat fee, while EX comes at a premium of $219.

Although sometimes you can get CSP at a discounted rate from annual sales so keep checking their prices.

GIMP

Price: Free
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux

GIMP is another open source program built as a free Photoshop alternative.

Back when computer graphics were slowly becoming “a thing” it was up to software developers to create graphics for companies. With Photoshop costing a lot more back then, buying it was out of the budget for many companies.

GIMP was built to fill the need for a cheaper option to digital imaging editing software.

Unlike other free digital art software, GIMP was designed to be a full replacement for Photoshop. This means you can use it for digital painting but it’s really meant for graphic design, photo editing, text effects, and similar features.

Likewise this program has all the tools you need for digital art. If you are looking for Photoshop’s functionality without the price tag you’ll be happy to with GIMP’s default functionality.

If you know a little about software development you can also add to GIMP’s code by creating your own plugins for the system. But the default setup is more than enough for artists.

Many versions of GIMP have been released over the years, but their team of volunteers hasn’t been able to keep up with the sheer financial power of Adobe. The user interface is definitely unrefined and will be very confusing to beginners.

There are loads of GIMP tutorials created by their loyal users and there’s enough content to help you learn everything you need about the software.

Although GIMP doesn’t have a dedicated support team to answer your questions, many issues are well documented on various forums and you’ll be able to troubleshoot a solution with a few Google searches.

The painting tools are reasonable, although in my opinion Krita is a stronger option if you just need painting.

Granted you can find plenty of free GIMP brushes all made for digital drawing & painting.

But really this software is the best all-round alternative to Photoshop. If you see yourself doing a bit of design work, some painting, and some photo editing, try out GIMP and see what you think.

ArtRage

Price: $79
Platforms: Mac, Windows

ArtRage is a digital painting powerhouse that’s perfect for traditional artists moving digital and for existing professional artists.

Unlike other digital art programs, ArtRage has stepped away from the complicated user interface and ditched the blocky side panels. They want your focus on the canvas creating great work.

When you open the program you’ll find a semi-circular brush picker on the bottom left of the screen and a color picker on the bottom right. Both give you immediate access to the most important tools.

Small “pods” containing extra options hover just above the circles, minimizing extra clutter.

After you’ve picked your color and brush you can start drawing on the canvas. The UI automatically disappears(although this setting is optional) and without the UI you get a full screen canvas to work on without any distractions. Pretty cool!

If you’ve never used digital painting software before then ArtRage is fantastic. It’s beginner friendly and super affordable.

You can start off slow, familiarizing yourself with the various brushes, and slowly work your way up to painting full scenes and character designs.

If you are coming from Photoshop you’ll find the minimalist layout refreshing and easy to pick up. The brush presets are so good that you don’t need to waste time adjusting them much at all.

One of ArtRage’s most exciting features is called “real color blending”. It calculates realistic color mixing as you paint and it’s useful for digital painting in an oil or watercolor style.

If you want to try your hand at digital painting for the first time, this software will hold your hand and take you from hobbyist to professional if you put in the effort.

It doesn’t have all the gadgets and gizmos that some prominent art programs have, but it’s got all you need to make fun paintings(and a little extra).

ArtRage is budget software and friendly to those getting started. You can also use the demo version for an unlimited amount of time. The demo doesn’t let you save anything, which of course is a drag, but you can use that to familiarize yourself with the program.

If you decide you want the full version it costs $79 and you’ll receive all future updates included with your license.

If that sounds a bit expensive you could go for ArtRage Lite which is only $29.90. The lite version is great for beginners and includes all the painting features of the full version.

Think of this much like Krita but aimed for simplicity. It’s cheap enough that you could run ArtRage for life and it’s certainly refreshing when you come from a big bulky art program.

Paint Tool SAI

Price: $49
Platforms: Windows

Lastly on this list is Paint Tool SAI: a simple painting program that’s exceptionally popular among anime & manga artists.

Paint Tool SAI was first released in 2008 to a wave of popularity. It quickly spread among the art community who loved the clean brush strokes and unique interface.

SAI is a small, old program and has not been significantly updated over the years. It only runs on windows and has a limited set of features.

That being said, it’s aged remarkably well and is easy for beginners to pick up.

Many artists use SAI to achieve a digital watercolor effect where the blending modes can mimic watercolor, but the overall feel is smooth and sleek. Others use it primarily for lineart, or for creating a ton of anime.

You’ll find that Japanese artists almost exclusively use SAI for their artwork. It’s a very popular choice in Japan, likely because this software was originally developed by the Japanese Systemax Software.

SAI’s learning curve is minimal and if you’re coming from Photoshop you’ll pick it up almost instantly. It’s still very detailed though and great to use as a sketching program.

Use the pencil brush to get realistic sketches down on a textured canvas. Then switch over to brushes and color your line art to completion.

Now there are some minor limitations like that new projects are limited to 256 layers per canvas. It’s also known to slow down with larger file sizes and glitch when trying to preview .gifs in the explorer window.

They also have a weird system of brushes where you can import textures to merge with brush styles and create totally new brushes. I haven’t mastered this setup but you can find a ton of textures in this post with dozens of free brush assets for SAI users.

SAI is a Japanese program and is priced in JPY(Japanese Yen). It costs ¥5400 which roughly equates to $49.

Compared to other software on this list, SAI is a tad on the pricier side considering the last update was in 2016.

Small complaints aside, considering the price tag and the anime-centric fanbase I’d say SAI is an awesome choice for anime lovers the world over.

Mac Artist Brush Set

Get started using SAI by following some easy beginner tutorials on painting in the program. If you put in the time you’ll be a pro within a few weeks.

A fantastic program for anyone serious about anime-style art or any kind of digital painting. Biggest downside is you’ll have to be a Windows user.

Although if I had to cast a vote for the absolute best digital painting software, that title falls with Photoshop.

Here’s hoping even more digital art software comes out in the next 10 years and gives some stiff competition to Adobe’s reign.