Joining the digital art world can be extremely intimidating for beginners, especially those who are used to traditional art. In this tutorial, you will be learning about one of my favorite assets to create a textured and realistic portrait. This brush set is a good alternative for persons who prefer traditional looking art to also enjoy the benefits of digital art.

 

First, let's learn how to locate Clip Studio Assets. I have also included the link for the asset being used in the event you do not want to go through this step.

Downloading Assets

Step 1:

Open the Clip Studio application and select "Clip Studio Assets" to the left of the screen.

 

Step 2:

 

Enter the keywords "realistic pencil" in the search bar and select the asset created by Marredae.

Step 3:

 

Once the brush is selected, click the orange "download" button to the top right of the screen to download the brush.

You can also watch the following video if you are having difficulty following the steps mentioned above.

Adding Downloaded Assets to Subtools

In this section, I will be showing you how to add the asset you have now downloaded to your subtools so that you can use it while creating your illustration

 

Step 1:

You will first have to open the material window. To locate this, you will go to "Window" in the main menu going across the top of the screen. In the pop up menu that appears, you will select Materials then the option for "Material [All materials]".

Step 2:

Once the materials window is open, locate the "Downloads" folder. This is where you will see all assets you have downloaded.

Step 3:

Once you have located the brushes you have downloaded. Once located, drag and drop the brush to the subtool you would like it to be found. You can always create a separate subtool by dragging and dropping a brush beside the subtools as seen in the below video.

Testing the Brushes (Speed and Pressure)

In this section, we will learn how to use the brushes in this asset.

 

I wanted to learn how the brushes work at different speeds. As you can see in the example below, the strokes on the left are fast speed and the ones on the right are slow. As you can see there is more texture when used at a slower. This is more evident with the Broad brush.

 

Below are examples of each brush with different pressure sensitivities. I have applied light pressure to the left, applying more pressure as I go to the right. This technique is traditionally used when adding value to a drawing which was executed greatly with these brushes.

Next, I tested the blending ability by adding value to a drawing of a circle. This was done using a combination of both techniques above (speed and pressure).

Finally, I also tested how well colours are blended using the brushes. They have a similar result to pencil crayons.

Timelapse : Creating an Illustration

The below video is a timelapse of how I used a combination of all the brushes to create a textured portrait.

Conclusion

Thank you for making it to the end of this tutorial and I hope this helps all traditional artists who are intimidated by digital media to get started with a brush that is similar to what you have been working with so far.

 

I also hope this was useful to current digital artists that want to explore a more traditional look to their art. If you enjoyed this tutorial please leave a like.

 

You can visit my Instagram page to view more of my art.