Serious question, did anyone else think custom brushes were just a waste of time?

I always stuck with the basic round brush in Procreate, thinking making my own was too much fuss. Last month, I was trying to paint realistic grass for a forest scene and it took me like 3 hours just for one patch. A friend told me to try a simple scatter brush with a few texture stamps. I made one in 10 minutes, and it cut my grass painting time down to maybe 30 minutes for the whole foreground. It felt like cheating, but the results look way more natural. What's one custom brush you made that actually saved you a ton of work on a piece?

3 comments

3 Comments

bettyk532mo ago

Wait you spent THREE HOURS on one patch of grass? That's wild, I would have given up after like twenty minutes. I used to be the same way, just using the basic soft brush for everything. My game changer was a simple texture brush for painting old brick walls. I just took a photo of some concrete, made it black and white, and turned it into a brush. Now I can paint a whole building facade in minutes instead of painstakingly drawing every single brick. It doesn't feel like cheating, it feels like using your brain.

jesse7731mo ago

Totally get that, it's a game changer for sure.

mason_lee2mo ago

I made a custom grass brush from a photo of my actual lawn. It's just a few different shades and lengths, but it saves so much time on background areas. You can focus your detail work on the foreground where it actually matters.