Need an oddly specific brush and can't find anything close enough on Assets? Say no more.

In this tutorial I'll guide you through creating a totally custom textured brush using traditional materials and stuff that's laying around the house.

 

Getting started

First of all, you'll need to find something textured.

It can be anything as long as it's something with a relatively prominent texture.

If you chose something rather smooth (like printer paper) you can emphasize the texture by applying a light layer of pencil, pastels or even paint on top. Make sure to use a contrasting color.

 

Photograph/scan your texture.

Pay extra attention to the lighting and angle when photographing. The goal is to get as little distortion as possible.

Creating a seamless texture

Open the photo in Clip Studio Paint and make it square by going to Edit ‣ Change Canvas Size and typing in the dimentions. I prefer 1000x1000px for my textures. Transform the image to fit.

 

 

Then right click on the layer, go to Convert Layer and choose Gray in the Expression color menu.

Adjust levels in Edit ‣ Tonal Correction ‣ Level Correction. Try to bring black and white to true black and true white.

Play with various adjustments until you're satisfied with the look.

In the View tab, turn on the Grid and go to Grid/Ruler Settings.

Set the Gap to your canvas width (1000px in my case) and the Number of divisions to 2.

Press Ctrl+3 or go to View and turn on Snap to Grid.

Duplicate the texture layer (Right click ‣ Duplicate Layer)

Select one vertical half of the texture using rectangular selection. It should snap to the middle line thanks to the grid.

Press Ctrl+X and then Ctrl+V to cut and paste the selection.

Now you have two halves of the picture on two separate layers.

Now select one half and move it to the opposite side. To do that, press Ctrl+T to get into the transform mode and then move the image by holding Shift and using arrows on your keyboard.

Make sure it's nicely aligned with the edges.

Do the same thing with the other half and merge these two half layers together.

With two halves of the texture switched like that, you may now notice the seam between them.

We'll need to get rid of it. I am doing it by erasing the seam line with a soft brush. (Don't forget to turn off Snap to Grid when doind this.) The original image is still underneath this layer, so it should fill in the erased gap nicely. (You can also use other parts of the texture to patch or neaten something up.)

Duplicate the original layer (the one underneath) and merge it with one we were erasing from.

Turn on Snap to Grid and select one vertical half again (same way as before). Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V and move the halves back to their original places.

Now onto the horizontal halves. Repeat the same exact process with them.

Select, paste, switch, merge, erase, merge, switch.

 

After that I reversed the colors. (Edit ‣ Tonal Correction ‣ Reverse Gradient )

White will be transparent, so it makes more sense now.

Now your texture is seamless, so the last thing left to do is to make it into an actual texture.

 

Merge all layers (right click on layer) or make just the seamless one visible.

Ctrl+A on the layer to select all (important), go to Edit ‣ Covert brightness to opacity, then Edit ‣ Register Material ‣ Image.

Name the texture, check "Use for paper texture", "Scale up/down" and "Tiling". Choose a material folder.

Done! Now you have a seamless texture to use for your brushes!

Brush tip shape

You can make your own brush tip shapes digitally as well as traditionally. Traditional just adds some steps like photographing/scanning and level correction.

I made a ton of brush for myself shapes by making splotches on a piece of paper. I find that the more beat up my (traditional) brush is, the more interesting shapes I can get.

Just have fun.

When your shape is drawn and already opened in Clip Studio Paint, resize the canvas to be around 500px on the bigger side. (Just so it's not too big) It doesn't have to be square.

Adjust the levels. Making whites white and blacks black again.

Edit ‣ Convert brightness to opacity

Right click on the layer ‣ Convert layer ‣ Gray (important)

Edit ‣ Register Material ‣ Image

Name it, check "Use for brush tip shape", select the folder it'll be saved to.

Done!

Setting up the brush

To combine all that into a brush I usually duplicate one of the existing brushes by Right click on the brush ‣ Duplicate sub tool.

Then open the Sub Tool Detail window by clicking the wrench icon in the Tool property menu.

I go to Brush tip, make sure that tip shape is set to Material and choose the shape I created. Keeping Brush density dynmics on.

Set up my texture in the respective tab, make sure my Texture density dynamic is on, Texture mode is (usually) Substract and Apply by each plot is checked.

That's basically it. I usually keep Color Mixing and stuff like that off.

Everybody likes their brushes different, so I see no point in explaining you why I chose one or the other setting, just play with it, see what you like.

Finished product

Here's what this brush looks like:

And a few other brushes made using this method:

Hope it was helpful ♥