I finally figured out why my digital paintings looked flat

I spent about 6 months just using the default soft round brush in Procreate for everything... faces, backgrounds, all of it. Last week I decided to try the flat rendering brush for my character shading instead. The difference was night and day, the colors actually sat on top of each other right instead of blending into a muddy mess. Anybody else have a brush swap that just clicked for their style?

2 comments

2 Comments

ellis.susan28d agoProlific Poster

Did you catch that episode of the Draftsmen podcast where they talked about brush texture and how it changes the way your brain reads the piece? I tried switching to a more textured brush after hearing that and it totally changed how I layer things.

claire_butler129d ago

Hard disagree honestly. That soft round brush is a workhorse for a reason, you just gotta learn how to use it right. I went through that exact same flat look phase for a couple months thinking I found the secret sauce, but all my stuff ended up looking like cutout paper dolls. The real trick is just layering the soft brush more and turning down the opacity.