In this tutorial, learn the best brushes and techniques for a traditional painterly style in digital artwork.

TheOneWithBear SUMI Brush Pack for CLIP STUDIO PAINT, designed by traditional/digital artist TheOneWithBear (Sarajean Chung), is a pack of brushes depicting the beloved traditional sumi (Japanese for INK) feel! Use this pack of brushes to create organic looking illustrations with the convenience of digital tools! MSRP $19.99 Now Only $9.99. For Clip Studio Paint Pro/EX and Manga Studio 5/5 EX On this brushes pack, they have another upd8:-White Flower Brush: are updated and changed name to 'White Flower Stamp'. Old brush: fav.me/d7mfu8f-Some brushes are tweaked from original website. (example: Random Dot Spray, I changed to grey brush tip.).

Painterly Brushwork and Canvas Textures

Clip Studio Paint Brush Pack # 2. Another set of brushes that may give you more control over your drawing and painting is Clip Studio Paint Brush Pack # 2. This brush pack comes with several brushes, for example, forest brush, tree brush, sparkle brush, treetop brush, and foliage brush. Clip Studio PaintGrass & Foliage Brushset. Download link: CLICK ME. Type in '0' for a free download or donate any amount if you wish! Use royalty-free in any personal, professional, school, or commercial work. Credit/tags are appreciated but optional.90 dynamic brushes.

Today I’ll be showing you a small set of Clip Studio Paint brushes I like to use to achieve an oily dry brush effect, like in this painting of a Boston Terrier who desperately wants to be a Dalmatian fire-dog. It has both a lot of syrupy and dry brush edged paint strokes.

First, it’s essential to get into the right mindset when trying to emulate a traditional look with digital tools. We tend to look for one magic brush that does it all, but that doesn’t exist digitally or traditionally. An oil painter uses many different sized brushes, palette knives, or even a rag to achieve a loose painterly style. The goal of this style is to give the impression of detail rather than the direct execution of it.

For digital painting, we want brushes that can create two distinct edges: hard or “found” edges and soft or “lost” edges. The combination of a lost-and-found edge creates a painterly effect and helps guide our eyes to focal points.

In this image, the focal points would be the face or the tip of the paint tube. In these areas, we may have a high concentration of hard or found edges, and in the least important parts, we may have a higher concentration of lost or soft edges. One way to make sure our painting has both lost-and-found edges is to use a handful of brushes that express both well.

I have assembled a shortlist of brushes that I’ve been using recently; three that I’ve purchased and others that I’ve created. The perfect painterly digital brushstroke can easily be controlled and even sculpted into your piece.

Second, for a traditional look, I recommend getting into the habit of painting over a photographic canvas texture. This particular one is from www.fuzzimo.com. They have free high-res canvas textures in addition to a folder of seamless textures.

About Clip Studio Paint

For this tutorial, I’m using Clip Studio Paint, a versatile software for illustration, comics, and animation. It comes with a range of digital art tools and brushes so you can start drawing with it right out of the box. There is also a version available on the iPad.
https://www.clipstudio.net/en/purchase/trial

Brush Introduction

Oil Paint Flat Brush

One of the best brushes in Clip Studio is the Oil paint flat brush that comes with the program. It blends nicely right out of the box. I like to use it at around 90% opacity. At 100% it can be completely opaque, but at 90%, you get mid-tone transition colors that you can pick from to paint. You can get a nice transition between hard and soft edges. It also has a great flat chisel shape.

Cat’s Tongue Brush

Next is this Cat’s tongue brush, which is a duplicate of the Oil paint flat brush but has a tapered edge on the front and back end of the stroke. To get this, I set the Oil Paint Flat Brush’s “brush size dynamics” to pen pressure. This setting is in the sub tool details palette. I also reduced the minimum value to about 12% and adjusted this curve a bit to create that tapered look with the paint.

Clip Studio Brushes Not Downloading

Ink Tapered Raw

The next brush is from a set I’ve purchased from www.daub-brushes.com. They have an excellent collection of tools for Clip Studio Paint and Manga Studio. I recommend getting the super bundle. However, it can be a little overwhelming to have so many brushes, so I’ve isolated the ones I feel are the best for this particular look. I’ll be using Ink tapered raw and Pigmento 10, which are in the “inks and pigments” folder, and Bristle broom brush, a blender in “dry media.”

Don’t let the name of a brush mislead you into only using it for that application. Ink tapered raw is in the inks and pigments folder, and yet we are using it for a traditional media brush tutorial. Instead, look at the effect that a brush has and use that to your advantage.

I like to use the Ink tapered raw brush at 100%. It is similar to the look of the Cat’s tongue, but it has this nice dry brush texture at the end. It also mixes nicely. Daub created it using scans of natural media combined with watercolor paper. You can always make your own version of this brush, but it’s such a reasonable price that I recommend just buying it.

Flat Ribbon Vertical

Flat ribbon vertical is a brush I created. It has a vertical chisel and does not follow the direction of your stroke. Instead, when you move across, it gives a nice disrupted feel, almost like a palette knife.

Flat Ribbon

Flat ribbon is pretty much the same as Flat ribbon vertical, but the direction of the brush tip is set to the direction of the line. This means that the texture wraps around and follows the brushstroke.

Flat Ribbon Horizontal

Flat ribbon horizontal is pretty much the same as Flat ribbon vertical except, it creates nice hard edges and has a flat texture upon drawing a downwards stroke. This one also has some brush size settings applied to it that I turn on and off depending on what I’m doing.

Flat Ribbon Soft

Flat ribbon soft is essentially the same as flat ribbon, except with a few more textures from the Clip Studio materials library. I often look for brushes that are going to give unplanned, spontaneous edges for a dry brush look. If I use my mouse, you can see that Clip Studio is selecting different patterns as I click. It randomly applies as many textures as it was loaded up with. It also presents these interesting terminal shapes that I would have a hard time painting.

Flat Ribbon Soft [S]

The next brush is Flat ribbon soft [S] which is the same brush as Flat ribbon soft except that the size is affected by pen pressure, so it has a little bit of a taper at the end. By experimenting with the pen pressure and the size or density of textures, you can get a controlled variation with just a handful of brushes as long as you know what they’re doing and how they’re different.

You don’t have to use these brushes. You can create your own with my free Youtube video tutorial on Clip Studio Paint basics, where I explain how to create a brush out of a black and white shape.

Pigmento 10

Pigmento 10 is an interesting brush from the Daub set. It forces a shadow into the paint color. It can be tempting to paint directly with this brush, but I find that as I’m color picking intermediate colors, I pick up the black shadow color which makes it hard to keep the color pure and clean. One of the ways I use Pigmento 10 is with a low opacity, around 20%. I pick a color over an existing stroke, paint on top of it and end up getting a shadow color that augments the existing brushstroke.

Brushwork Theory

Going to the theory, what we’re looking for in our brushstrokes is the transition between lost and found edges. When I say “lost” and “found,” we also mean soft and hard edges. This is the mindset to keep as we’re building our brushwork.

Found Edge to Lost Edge

There are different ways to get from one kind of edge to the other. One way is to start with a found edge and move to a lost edge.

Here we have gray undertones at 60% opacity, orange at 90% opacity and shadows laid with the Oil paint flat brush. It has a lot of found or hard-edged brush strokes, without a lot of dry brush lost edges. Then I can go to one of my lost edge brushes and start color picking from the image and start finding those transitions with this Ink tapered raw brush. When you use this brush at these at large sizes, you get a lot of spontaneous edges.

Lost Edge to Found Edge

Another way is to start with a lost edge and move to a found edge.

Using the Ink tapered raw, you can make a rough lost edge brush stroke and then come in with the Oil paint flat brush to create a hard edge. I’m looking to create a contrast of shape into a brushstroke that disappears.

No matter which way you start, with a hard/found edge and moving to soft/lost edge, or vice versa, there’s no one right way to do it. I tend to start with a lot of found edged planes so I can understand what the shape of my subject matter is and then I have a lot of fun finding the lost edges.

Blending Edges

The other option to turn a found edge into a lost edge is with blending tools. Clip Studio Paint comes with a beautiful blender called Soothing watercolor. Again don’t be fooled by the name, because we’re using it for an oil painting look.

The third Daub brush that I like to use is called Bristle broom. Even though it’s in the brush folder, I move it into the blenders folder so that when I hit J, I have access to it as a blender. It does the same thing as Soothing watercolor, except it has a slight tooth to it, so it doesn’t blend as smoothly as Soothing watercolor.

I then finish off with my Daub Pigmento brush. I tend to use this brush at around 10% to 20% because you can easily overwork the edges with it. I use it to blend out some of that sameness that a digital brush can leave.

Finishing Up

So how can you put this into practice? If you head over to Gumroad.comRubenLara, you can find an instructive tutorial called Simple Dry Brush Technique on the making of this painting Equal-opportunity Fire-dog. It uses only a few brushes, and more importantly, it helps you understand a method and a mindset when going for a traditional look with digital tools. It also shows how to set up a canvas texture using a repeating image tile and includes the brushes I made from this demo.

Please note that the Daub brushes are not included, but you can get them from those awesome folks at Daub.
I hope this was helpful! Remember that good art doesn’t rely on the perfect brush system or painting tool, but rather on your creativity and storytelling!

The rebranding from Manga Studio to Clip Studio Paint was sudden but nothing major.

More artists now than ever are switching and creating artwork in Clip Studio Paint.

And every artist knows brushes are the cornerstone of great digital art. Whether you’re drawing, inking, or painting, you need the right brushes for the job.

Thankfully all previous Manga Studio 5/EX brushes work flawlessly in Clip Studio Paint. Not to mention artists have been releasing their own CSP brushes ever since the software update.

I’ve cataloged the absolute best brushes for CSP and Manga Studio all in this post.

No matter what software you’re running or what kind of artwork you make, there’s gonna be a few brushes here that’ll pique your interest.

1. Big Brush Set

Let’s start with one of my favorites: a massive brush pack originally designed for Manga Studio 5.

Clip Studio Brushes

All of these brushes work with CSP so there’s no concern over what software to run. Not to mention there’s a lot of variety here between the basic set of drawing brushes, inking brushes, and some older custom designs.

Perfect for artists of all skill levels and this makes a great entryway into CSP.

Highly recommend grabbing a copy of this pack. It’s pretty large at 41MB but it’s well worth the download.

2. CSP Brush Pack #1

DeviantArt user Yettyen has created a few brush packs of their own to merge with Clip Studio Paint.

This pack is the first of two which includes a few handy brush styles from basic markings to some foliage designs.

It’s a fairly small pack but you can find something in here for any piece of work. Painting gets a lot easier with the right brushes so it’s worth testing these out just to get a feel for how they work.

3. CSP Brush Pack #2

The same artist above released this second pack of brushes with quite a few enhancements.

You will find foliage brushes and spackle brushes mixed in. But there are some cool new designs like a forest brush and a custom treetop brush.

By the name these may sound a little cheesy. I’m actually surprised how well they work and how much they blend into a painting.

With various textures and some nice cloud brushes in here this is definitely a pack worth downloading.

4. Manga Studio 5 Brushes

This older set of 14 MS5 brushes can work nicely in the newer versions of Clip Studio Paint too.

All of the brushes follow a kind of theme with simple cloud blending brushes, patchy charcoal-style brushes, and glitchy pixel-y brushes.

Some designs even borrow inspiration from Minecraft which is an interesting take.

Check out the preview on the main DA page and see if this pack could fit into your workflow.

5. Elisven Brushes

Here’s a very nice custom pack released by DeviantArt user Elisven.

These come straight from Clip Studio Paint and were designed by the artist directly. That means you’ll be getting a handy pack of brushes that should fit any style, any project, with any goal.

A couple concept brushes mixed with some textures and a few organic brushes all make up this pack of 6 brushes.

Not huge, but not small either. You can do a lot with these brushes given the right skillset.

6. Mama Madzia Brushes

In regards to top-tier custom brushes I have to cast my vote for this set created by DA user MagdaPROski.

It’s meant specifically for Clip Studio Paint with a focus on painting.

There’s a lot to unpack here with some oil brushes, a textured brush, wet/dry mixes and even a nice “hairy” brush. It works beautifully on hair and blends smoothly with the other brushes in this set.

Absolutely worth grabbing if you’re into digital painting with CSP.

If you’re just getting into this software you can also find a lot of value with these brushes. Although you might try using them with a few tutorials to get accustomed to the software.

7. SerketStalker’s Assorted Brushes

For a nice variety of miscellaneous brushes have a look at SerketStalker’s set.

It comes with 18 unique brushes from simple ink & pen brushes up to more complex designs like flower patterns and crystal brushes.

Granted I realize not all of these will be useful to the average artist. But the best brushes in here are the painting & drawing brushes, especially the speedpainting brushes. Plenty to play with in this set if you’re already familiar with the software.

Not to mention at the price of free you can’t beat it.

8. Blue & Red Pencil Brushes

Many artists like to work in red or blue pencil to mark sketches, practice drawings, or just for a bit more color on the page.

It’s become a norm in traditional drawing and now it’s something you can do in Clip Studio Paint thanks to these colored pencil brushes.

Inside the pack you’ll find two of each color with varying textures. They do look a lot like pencil sketches and that’s really what sells me on this pack.

Anyone who’s looking to do some digital drawing will enjoy this freebie.

9. Dry Brushes

DeviantArt user RoastedStix has a fantastic dry brush pack for artists. This comes with a handful of different brush styles and they all take on a very nice brush feeling to them.

Is this worth using in your work? Well if you’re into painting scenes from scratch then absolutely.

If you’re more into sketching first and filling in later this may feel a bit too loose at times. Although nothing beats working with brushes that really feel like brushes.

A great free pack that should be a solid fit for all digital painters.

10. Gouache Brushes

The same person who created the pack above also released this gouache set for CSP.

It was originally designed for Manga Studio 5 but has since been updated with a few tweaks. Now it works in both programs and it’s one of the better options I’ve found to mimic a traditional feeling on the screen.

With a total of 10 brushes available you’ve got a lot to pick from. And these brushes can do wonders for your painting work if you’re willing to put in the time with them.

At first these may feel awkward under your stylus but give it time. You’ll pick up the feeling pretty quickly.

11. DV Brush Set

In this massive set of CSP brushes you’ll get well over 100 styles all together in a single pack.

The DV Brush Set created by Darkodev certainly deserves recognition. It’s one of the largest sets on the Internet and it’s specifically designed for Clip Studio Paint users.

You can find a lot of brush styles in here between weather brushes, custom textures, and some of the more “basic” brushes that we all use everyday.

Whether you’re painting fur, dinosaur scales, a mech suit or a meadow scene, this brush pack has it all with more than you’ll probably ever need.

12. DAUB Brushes

I really like the simpler brush packs because they apply to more regular projects. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in this paintbrush set by DAUB.

A full 20 brushes that work for MS5 and CSP so there’s plenty to go around. Not to mention this includes a few handy textures for altering some brushes and changing the final lay down.

You can work in styles like watercolors, oils, pencil or ink, all with this one brush pack.

I’d say this is truly an artist’s brush set. Every single item in here has a purpose and can find its way into your artwork.

13. Escente CSP Brushes

DeviantArt user Escente published a small pack of custom brush settings based on their own brushes panel.

These brush settings are really easy to edit and pretty simple to setup. But if does help if you already have experience working in CSP.

I won’t say the brushes match exactly with their intention. The acrylic brush looks good but not a perfect match, same with the oil brush.

However they are definitely believable if you do a lot of digital work.

If you’re brand new to digital painting maybe pick one of the earlier brush sets to start with a wider variety.

14. TheInkyWay Brushes

I’m surprised just how many Manga Studio brush packs are still out there online.

But they work just fine with all newer versions of CSP so it makes sense. One nice example is this pack with a bunch of really fun styles.

You can work with a calligraphy brush to draw words and dialogue for your own webcomic. Or you can really hit reflected light on your paintings with the smooth painterly brushes.

Everything is customizable in the brushes panel and there’s a little something here for everyone.

Worth checking out to at least gauge your own opinion.

15. Essential CSP

Gumroad is the place to be for awesome brush packs. One user hattersarts created a totally free essentials kit full of Clip Studio Paint brushes.

I’d say the name “essentials” fits this well.

You can get started with CSP just using this brush pack and learn a lot in the process. This has a few textured brushes for drawing & painting along with some basic flat brushes for making simple marks.

I can’t say this is overly detailed but it’s certainly worth grabbing a copy to try out.

16. Free Sample Pack

For something with a tad more variety have a look at this free sample brush pack designed exclusively for Clip Studio Paint.

Note the majority of brushes made for CSP are backwards-compatible for Manga Studio and there shouldn’t be any problem getting these to work in either program.

This free brush set is small but certainly unique. Some nice pencil/sketching brushes along with painterly brushes.

All-around just one heck of an asset.

Works well for all skill levels and for all types of drawings from anime work to more stylized illustrations.

17. Loose Inkers

Digital inking feels a lot different than working with art pens traditionally.

Technique is the key, but the right brushes can help a lot too. Have a look at this brush set made for inking in CSP.

It’s a very small pack with only 3 brushes that all have a loose inking feel to them.

If you do a lot of digital inking this is absolutely worth trying. You may not like the feeling at first but you can adjust the settings with ease.

18. BrotherBaston Brush Pack

Now here’s a truly incredible varied brush pack with a lot to go through.

Cloud noise, dry brushes, pencils, basic flat brushes and so much more gets packed into this tiny freebie from BrotherBaston.

Out of all the pencil/brush packs with a focus on artwork, I have to vote this within the top 5. It’s super easy to pick up and use plus it comes with a lot of variety in brush styles.

Changing opacity, size, and even altering shape is all basically a breeze.

Great for experienced CSP users but also a nice fit for newbies too.

19. Side Pencil Brush

Unique brushes always have a place in your toolbox. You never know when they’ll come in handy.

If you’re looking to add more into your collection have a quick look at this side pencil brush pack.

It’s meant to do exactly what the name suggests: mimic a pencil drawn at a slant.

And let me say it does this job beautifully.

I’ve yet to find any similar brush that hits the screen in a similar way. Granted not everyone will find this useful but it’s definitely a unique design with some powerful applications.

20. Porforever Custom Brushes

Digital artist Porforever released this brush pack tailor made for Clip Studio Paint.

It’s a fairly large pack that’s actually a combination of 3 different brush sets. You get some nature brushes, cloud brushes, and a few custom shapes mixed in.

Not all of these will work for digital art. They may not fit every project and you may not even have a use for some of these shapes.

But it’s worth considering given the $0 price tag and the large variety you get in this 3-for-1 freebie set.

21. DAUB Pencils

Earlier I mentioned the DAUB brushes pack and now I wanna share their custom pencil brushes pack.

The name DAUB is synonymous with quality. You can find a bunch of premium brushes on the main website but I recommend sticking to the free brushes at first.

You can find everything you need between their free paint brush pack along with this pencil pack.

For pencils you’ll find a few hard & soft styles along with a brush for shading and a greasy pencil.

In my eyes this is a must-have brush pack. Especially if you’re gonna do a lot of sketching or line work before painting your pieces.

22. Shrineheart’s Mega Pack

In this brush pack you’ll find over 1,400(yes that’s a four-figure number) brushes divided into 40 different yet equally amazing packs.

No matter what your style is like or what you’re drawing, you’ll find the perfect brush here for everything from skin to splatters to fur.

This bundle will set you back $70 in total. But at 5 cents a brush, that’s still a bargain!

This might be the only brush pack you ever need for digital painting in CSP. and you’ll constantly discover new brushes to play with as your style evolves.

23. Shrineheart’s Painterly Fur

Few things take longer to draw than fur and hair.

So make sure to try this pack of 27 brushes specifically made to render all kinds of fur, from soft and fluffy to coarse and matted.

They also work really well for rendering feathers and foliage!

If you draw animals or any kind of hairy creature in your concept art, this pack will save you a ton of time.

24. Landscape Texture Brush Pack

Safe to say you’ll feel like Bob Ross with this brush pack.

Clip Studio Brushes Deviantart

This pack is made up of 100+ brushes specifically created for painting mountains, clouds, water, stones, and everything else you’d possibly want to include in your landscape paintings.

A lot of these brushes started out as Photoshop brushes and were adapted for Clip Studio, so you might love these if you’re also a fan of PS and like the brushes you’ve used there.

Whether you paint traditional landscapes or include a lot of landscapes in your concept art (or if you WANT to) this brush pack is a must-snag.

25. INK for CSP

Now this set of brushes is perfect for comic book artists, illustrators, calligraphers, or anyone who uses a lot of “ink” digitally.

It contains over 40 brushes that mimic different types of pens for ink line work.

You’ll also get brushes for splashing and blotting that work like real ink. These brushes also create halftones for even more shading options.

Clip Studio Brushes Free

All brushes in here are compatible with CSP 1.6.2, 1.6.3, and newer versions as well as Manga Studio 5.

Clip Studio Brushes Tumblr

26. New Watercolor Set

After you grab this pack you’ll feel like you’re unwrapping a brand new set of watercolors from the art supply store.

These brushes have beautiful transparency and a loose quality exactly like real watercolors.

You can layer colors and values and create all kinds of wet and dry textures you could make with paint and paper.

These brushes download as multiple filetypes including .png, .clip, and .psd files. So they’re compatible with tons of different programs outside of CSP too. You can even download a brush to try for free if you’d like a little sample first.

27. Typesprite Basic Set

Let’s wrap with a simple pack of basic brushes for Clip Studio Paint.

This comes to us from the creative mind of Typesprite. Check out their Gumroad for more assets including another free Clip Studio Paint brush set.

I like this basic pack because it lives up to the name. It’s basic enough that you can work with these brushes on any project and with any art style.

Excellent for beginners, intermediates, and advanced artists too. Plus these work nicely for practice sessions whether you’re doing some digital figure drawing or just scribbling a few sketches.

Combine this pack with the more advanced brushes mentioned above and you’ll have a powerhouse toolkit for your CSP artwork.