Photoshop Tutorial Custom Foliage Brushes

you hey everybody Terran Blaise here and I've just put together a whole new set of foliage brushes that are going to really they're really going to help you guys out you're going to love them they it really enables you to paint too quickly paint foliage trees grasses plants that sort of thing it's a set of 58 custom brushes that I've that I've put together and some of them you just paint right on other ones you kind of build and so I thought I'd take this opportunity to kind of take you through some of the processes on how to use them okay so let's just jump right into it because there's a lot here so I'm going to come up here and up here you can see right in this area I've got you see I've got a lot of brushes but right on these top brushes all the way down to right here I've got all of these brushes are all foliage brushes these first ones 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 these first 7 these are brushes where you can just paint a tree or a plant right onto your right down to your canvas let me just grab let me grab I'll just grab the first one to start off with and if I paint you'll see boom I've got these kind of cool little plants that just paint right on let me go to this next one this paints a tree watch this see that pretty neat they're very simple these are great for backgrounds if you want to really push them back in value here I've already got them kind of pressure sensitive I'll go back into the mist if I grab this one here let's make that a little bigger so you guys can see a little bigger a little better there see that and then you can just paint a top right onto them they're really neat they you should use them to go to paint from the top down because the branches I've created to go that direction alright whoops I could paint it over our background let me redo that and we'll refill go back to our paint brush create a new layer on top there we go and I've even created trees that like dead trees and you can just kind of paint them in kind of quickly and then I've got a couple more here or pine trees here's one that might be a little full there you go so they're very cool they're very quick and easy and like I said they're great for background and they're just they're a lot of fun to play with you can create a little forest with them see how quickly they go on now let's jump into the rest of these brushes here from this one right here is the one eighty to one hundred eighty two pixels and on onward these are all their their leaves their branches and these first two right here I'm going to show you they just create a textured line but what that Det what that is is that it's a trunk it creates a nice trunk to start with to build your tree on to so I'm just going to grab the other one so you can see it I'm going to knock the size down just a hair actually now I'll leave a backup and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to create got to create a new layer over on the right side see layer seven and I'm just going to draw a line down and it's pressure-sensitive so the harder I press the thicker of a line I'll create and you can see it's got a nice texture to that silhouette and maybe another one there there we go very simple and what we're doing is we're going to create this tree silhouette and then we're going to build on top of it and I'll take you through some of the processes and some of the blend modes for the brushes that I use so now that we've we've got in our trunk let's grab some branches so I'm going to grab some branches right here let's knock the size up just a hair and I'm just going to start at the top and brush down and look what happens see how quick and easy that was so we're slowly building up our tree we've got the trunk we've got some basic bare branches and now I'm going to go ahead and grab and grab some other leaves let's go ahead and grab just for the heck of it let's grab some of these leaves right here and I'm just going to start here work down there you can just slowly I can just kind of build oh don't want to do that when you see that branch sticking out actually no I'm going to leave it because I'm going to show you what you can do with that there I've got some cool cool branches sticking out there we've got just the right balance of live branches dead branches they're sticking out but it's not obviously it's not a full tree yet so let's go ahead I'm going to shrink it down because I want to save some room for the top so let's keep that there we've got a nice silhouette going and I'm going to go ahead and I've got some other leaves in here some other you can see they look like circles these circles of the clumps of leaves well watch what happens when I use them I want to fill in some gaps now so let's come up at the top and just stamp it in there boom to stamp it in there look what happens we're filling in some of these gaps remember I showed you where that leaf that branch there I've just filled that in now we're kind of taking care of that silhouette and fill that out at the top I dig that I like that right there and so what's nice about that is you can use these stamp these these brushes these filler brushes to kind of take care of that repetition that you get sometimes with the branches when you paint them on you can make it feel much more organic and so that's what we've done here so now what we've got we've got a really great silhouette and that's fine if you want to push that into the background and just use that you can use that there but we don't have to stop there this is what's really cool the first thing we want to do if I want to start building this up and really make a tree that has leaves in color and that sort of thing first thing I want to do is I'm going to I'm going to repeat that layer I just dragged it down you can see the little icon down here and I'm going to turn the one off underneath because I like to save one just to go back and kind of play with later and then you see that where it says lock and this little checkerboard I'm going to lock that and what that enables me to do is I can paint all over this but whatever I do on top it's only going to paint where I've already painted okay let me blow this up real quick to remember those filler brushes that we used let me shrink this up so it doesn't get so distracting you see in here some of the leaves that stick out and you know it fills in it already starts to fill in a little bit where in some of these clumps it's kind of neat but anyway we've got this locked and now we can't really we can't really paint anywhere outside of this silhouette so the first thing I want to do is I want to create some texture on this trunk well now that we've got it locked that's kind of cool and I'm going to blow this up so you can see it a little better and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to come up here and remember the trunk brushes were up here but you'll see three brushes right here and when I click on it I'm going to grab it and you see it's got this funky texture to it I'm going to shrink it down just a little bit there we go and now that I've got it locked I won't paint outside of it and I'm going to come over and I'm going to I want to grab a nice warm kind of brown color now watch what happens as I paint along the edge of this tree look at that I'm painting texture right into that tree see that and if I don't like if I feel like I've gone too far over I can just grab that that tree color and I can paint texture going right back the other direction with the tree color look at that and already you're starting I'm imagining the light kind of being off to the right side and behind us so I'm creating a little texture there maybe there's a little reflected light on the left side so I'm going to grab a cooler kind of gray maybe not quite as dark or I'm sorry not as light and I'm just going to paint along the edge we redo that I'm going to shrink this brush up a little bit there we go it's going to paint along the edge look at that we've got a little bit of reflected reflected light there bring it up in here maybe some some texture in there see that now I want to come back I'm going to grab some of that color that we use to on the light side I'm going to brighten it up and just hit I'm going to grab one of the other textures and I'm just going to hit it lightly right along the edge oh I'll lock it up there we go right along the edge and just so it's catching a little bit of light maybe grab one of the other textures there we go shrink that up a little bit more and just paint along the edge again and just play with those textures but already you see we've got this trunk got some texture on the trunk see that now let's do the same thing with the leaves so we've got a great silhouette but let's go back to some of these stamp brushes remember I showed you these filler brushes let's grab describe a different one I'm going to grab this one here it's a little bit big I want to shrink it down just a hair not too much let's make it a 800 pixels that's a good size now I'm going to grab a green I wanted leaves to be green ish because we're going to we're going to vary up some of the color I'm going to pull it in here and I'm going to turn on the opacity button I'm going to knock the opacity down a little bit because I don't want to be too overpowering and what I'm going to do I'm going to once again we're imagining that color off to the right so I'm just going to lighten up it's going to stamp in some of these areas I'm just stamping it that's all I'm doing see that I'm going to hit imagining some of these leaves being in the foreground coming towards us maybe some in here and leaving generally the leaves on the left side kind of in the dark alright so already where our you know get starting to get some cool interesting textures and what's neat is look how much I can stamp along the right side but it doesn't because that that level is locked it doesn't stamp outside there I'm going to lighten that up a little bit in there let's lighten that up in there well that's kind of cool you see that now let's grab some of our leaves I've got a whole bunch of different leaf shapes that you can play with up here I'm just going to grab this first one and just lightly we're going to I'm going to come in use that say let's use that same color I'm going to knock the opacity up and just come in I'm lightly brushing some of these leaves on listen'd large that a little bit once again thinking about the light areas thinking about the the clump leaf shapes see that oh let's get rid of that there some of those leaves are a little too big for back there and then knock that size down just a bit there we go look at that hit some of these leaf shapes in here air now watch this those are all consistent all those leaves are kind of they're all basically the same color if I grab the next one over what that does is that paints leaves in the same shape but that hue varies a little bit when you look at a tree it plants those sorts of things the color isn't always consistent you get a lot of variances of greens and that sort of thing and that's one of the things I try to design into this brush here so that you can get different different hues in the green you know if we're it will go a little warmer a little cooler just like it would in nature and then one other one last leaf right here on the right side there is when I paint this in I created leaves that we're seeing some edges see how they're kind of turned so we can create and it'll it'll go with the edge the direction that I paint it it'll follow the direction of the brush so we can get like the tops of clumps of leaves maybe we'll get a little over here we'll get some up in here we can just really start to fill that in maybe maybe we want I'll get some of the eggs up here just really quickly really quickly laying some of these in hit a couple there underneath already that's looking kind of cool right well let's uh we want to get some reflected light maybe some of these leaves over on the left side are kind of cool they're reflecting a little bit of sky making on the blue side maybe a little gray not quite as bright and let's come in and just brush in some of those leaves in there look at that and see how uh the hue varies up a little bit that's what happens in nature you know some of the some of them don't reflect quite as much light you know the value jumps around a little bit it's a little bit lighter some or a little darker but see you can continue some of these some of these clump shapes right into the shadow areas see that maybe a little bit under here not catching quite as much light but they're in the dark area there look at that maybe some in there and just push that a little harder and you can get you know the harder you press the more leaves you'll get now look at this tree that's coming to life already it's just a matter of minutes we've really started pulling this together let's get a few more in here now this has all been used we've been doing this if you look at the mode for the brush the brush mode we've been doing this under normal if we I'm going to go ahead and repeat this again I'm going to double up that layer turn this off I like to once I hit cut me where I want to try something new I'll create a new layer that way you can always go back but I'm going to turn this one on it's already locked and I'm going to come up here and Photoshop automatically comes with their standard brushes which I have down here here's an airbrush I'm going to grab the airbrush I'm going to knock the size up to about here you can see I've got it at 143 pixels I'm going to knock the opacity down okay now I'm going to go and I'm going to set it on multiply and I'm going to grab kind of a cool green and kind of mid to a little bit lighter than mid-tone and I'm going to go in and I'm going to push back see what happens when you set it on multiply I'm going to blow that up when you set it to multiply it multiplies with the color underneath whatever color that you're painting so we can push things back we still keep that detail you can see it but now the values are coming together and it's starting to we're pushing back into that space into the tree like right here it feels kind of flat well I want to push back I'm going to let's knock the size of the brush down a little bit I'm going to push this all back just push it back in there oh look at that we'll push it back in there maybe some of these clumps will push that back in get some shadow over in there get some push this back in here and because once again we've got this layer locked nothing is painting outsides like all these little negative spaces that you see in here like that they don't get painted over we can paint as much as we want and as long as this layer is locked they don't get painted over so we can make these leaves back here really dark if we want to see that we can create some darkness there there we go so let's putting that back so those are some cool shapes push that back a little bit now let's push that back a little bit these feel a little too late that feels a little too light right there you can push that back see so now we're getting some cool kind of light and dark well let's create I'm going to double that up again turn that off let's go and set our brush setting to overlay now and I'm going to grab a nice light color what overlay does is it kind of brightens up what's underneath it so I'm going to grab a light color kind of warm I'm going to come back and I'm going to grab one of our leaf brushes again I'm going to grab I'm going to grab the one where we can see the edges and I'm going to come in and I'm just going to paint right over the top I'm going to blow that up and look what happens okay we're painting some light leaves in there they get nice and bright and it's kind of random and scattered and we're getting some nice color variances given into the shadow areas I'm going to go ahead and paint I'm going to really get a lot in here I want to lighten up this area get some nice bright kind of highlights happening off the top I'll push this a little bit more look at that nice kind of variances of value a varied value effect that we got going on I'm going to come down here hit a few more in there there now look at that we've got a really neat tree happening I want to come back up I'm going to grab some of these warmer darker greens and I want to kind of I want to spread out I'm not you know it's feeling a little too green over on the right side so let's just go ahead and put this back to normal right up here and let's just brush in I'll have knock the opacity up let's just brush in now a few leaves over the dark areas that we just created see that and it adds a nice it balances it out see the key here is to really get experimental play with these different modes I usually use normal multiply and overlay though and sometimes and then that to really brighten things up I'll use color dodge and those are the only ones I really use let's go ahead and brighten that up a little bit there we go just brightened it there we go and can just hit just a couple of areas in there there we go look at the shapes we're getting you know when we use that brush that has the the leaves that are kind of turned to their edge it really helps define that define the the clump shapes of the leaves and it uh it rounds them out you know you can use the whoops turn that back on we can use you know this this one here where the leaves are all flat and that you can use for the front like we're doing there look at that boom get some great feel to that see that very simple once again I'm going to go back to multiply right there now watch one wee happens when we use some of these leaves on multiply now we're creating leaves that are making kind of leaf shaped shadows in here see that and it makes it a little more there we go makes it a rounded once again makes it a little richer rounds it out where you get some really nice little spots of dark it's all about texture we're building up texture in this background I'm go get some nice shadow shapes in there let's go to our leaf that's turn to the edge we'll get some nice speckled texture in there see what we're doing we're building up some really great shapes in here now umm trees like this they're always going to you know we've already established that there's some dead branches in here you see them along the edges well I've got a branch or we can go in where is it here I've got there it is this one right here 767 let's grab that branch and I'm going to knock this all the way up right there to 100% let's get a nice gray you know dead branch color let's go into the brown area make it nice and light and I'm going to pick some areas in the and I just want where I want I want to see these these textures here these branches I want to kind of repeat that and you see what I've got with the shape of the brush if I just kind of stamp in here I've turn that off if we just kind of stamp in yellow and we set this to normal sorry I had it set to multiply that's why I couldn't see it if I just kind of stamp in here look at that we got a branch we got another branch I'm going to turn that on turn that on let's just experiment a little bit that one feels a little bit big in the turn there we go we'll go in there oh there's a nice little texture there's some texture there it's all about being very subtle very very subtle there we go there's a nice little texture get some texture in there maybe in there this kid a couple little areas doesn't need a lot there now we can go back over the top just grab our green again and grab it right in here let's go back to our leaves right there we're already set on normal we and there we go now let's just kind of brush over the tops of those and we'll get some nice leaf shapes over the dark so that's you know you pick little areas of where the light will play over the dark little areas of focus where your eye can go see that there we go let's cool off maybe we've got some cooler color leaves in there there we go we're going off out of the direct sunlight let's go over here over those some of those branches look at that tree it's really coming to life now we've got a ton of detail going on in here maybe you don't want all that detail you want to soften it a little bit well this is something I discovered that's really cool here's one of here are several of my grass brushes and I'm going to demonstrate those we're for painting actual grass but they're really great for softening areas I'm going to grab this one right here 236 let's grab that brush I'm sorry let's go to our smear tool and then grab that brush which I've already done and I set it at about 30% somewhere in there right now it's at 34 and let's say we want to soften some of these areas and we want to give it kind of a painterly feel why I'm going to blow this up watch what happens when we do this look what I'm doing you see how I'm softening and watch I can turn this off and turn off the the lock and so let's say you know you want to soften some of these edges back here I'll just come in and and it's it's a little crosshatch II but I kind of like that it feels painterly to me and so I like to use that and I'm going to come in and look at how I'm softening softening edges softening some of these negative spaces in here maybe their feel a little harsh look at that come in there and soften that just kind of work over the whole thing maybe you want to come in here and soften some of those some of these areas where the leaves recede underneath but we leave the detail you know right here in the foreground maybe we want to soften some of this back here get it nice and pushed back not so detailee because remember what happened what's really cool about this is after you soften something you can go back in and just lightly hit it with a little bit of detail now this I use this the smear method the smudge tool as you call it I use that for kind of taking some of the detail out of the grasses too and so when we get to that I'll show you but look how nice that is it gives us this nice soft you know in areas where we want to lose edges gives us this nice soft feel I'll come over here and let's lose some edges over here just soften that up just a hair and it's just it really gets the tree to kind of feel like it's not cut out and it just sits in the environment kind of nicely and once again like I said you can be really selective on where you use it and it just gives it a nice painterly non-digital feel I like I don't like paintings that look you know digital paintings that look digital we can get in here and we can just make it look painterly and soften and play with it you know you want to soften maybe some of the tree trunk edges look at that we just get right in there and do it see how cool that is it gives it kind of this misty just nice feel so we've done that now let's go back to our paintbrush and grab those leaves again those edge where we're looking at edges and let's grab a nice really warm color and just lightly go in and over some of those areas that we softened we can add a little bit more detail right back in over the top and remember I've got it unlocked so I now some of these these leaves can go outside the silhouette of what we've created and look how such a great feel that you get here look at that these brushes that just they really enable you to get really creative and not spend tons of time painting leaves and all that sort of thing look at that oh that's hit a little bit there I'm going to go a little cooler again go over to the left side where there's reflected light let's go in here maybe blend it in with some of those warm colors see that got some great shape we got little branches sticking out you know once again let's go let's grab that branch again right here there it is knock the size down just maybe hit some of those and we bring that back up again maybe hit a couple there we go like that but you say oh man that looks too it looks too light well what's neat is we can come up and we'll set our brush mode to multiply and once again go back to that airbrush let's knock the size down knock the opacity down so we can be subtle with it and let's push those branches back now we're getting some nice dark dark holes there in the in the trees like you get in reality let's lock that layer so we can push some of these back there we go look at that nice let's get some darkness back in there so turn the tip the pressure sensitivity to the tip on you can get really kind of detailed back in there see that push some of these leaves back again and so it's really kind of endless you can keep playing with it keep playing with it and really build these trees up to where you've got a really great very organic kind of thing happening look how cool that tree is you know some of these areas might feel a little soft well if they do you just go back in and you add you do your leaves again so let's come back because some of those feel a little soft to me I'm going to grab that I'm going to leave it on multiply let's come in just work over the top knock that opacity up like I'm getting some nice harsh edges there some nice shadow areas now let's set that back to normal keep that brush I'm going to grab once again go back to that nice warm color work over the top there we go nice right over some of these soft area there we go some of these soft areas let's blow this up a little bit more I'll run some leaves there look at that there so we got a really neat tree very relatively quick we created it relatively quick for what for what it is ok so let's say we want to add some grasses now well let's make a layer behind the tree all right now let's just grab some nice a nice green and once again here these are all the different leaves so yeah you can experiment with those play with them I'm going to grab some grass right here I'm going to set this all this to normal and turn all those other switches off up the air set all to normal and bring this up I'm going to make this color I want because I want to on the background it's cool it off a little bit tone it down oops turn that off let me grab it let me grab a different one here there we go whoops there so let's we've got that all turned off in the background we've got some nice look at that some nice color happening I push that remember this is going to be a background layer I'm going to come back let's grab this again let's go a little warmer it can stand and go a little warmer there we go and all I'm doing is I'm just scrubbing I'm just painting to make it go tall if we want now we can bring the strokes up a little higher you know the idea is to not be too repetitive but what's really nice is that it really paints in painting a lot of a lot of you know leaf stalks and that sort of thing real quickly for you let's come back to our other leaves again and paint those in look at that now watch if we once again just like we did on the other one if we lock that layer we can come in I'm going to grab kind of this mid-tone again I'm going to grab the airbrush setting I'm going to set it to multiply and whoops that's a little too much I want to turn that on turn the opacity button turn the opacity down turn this guy off there we go that's better be much more subtle now look we can push these guys like I'm not painting outside the leaves we're creating kind of a shadow over the top all right see how that works now let's create a layer on top a new layer on top let's go nice and warm with our leaf color or our grass color we're going to grab those same grasses increase the size a little bit because they're coming into the foreground and let's just paint right over the top knock that opacity up this is paint right over the top there we go I'm just very lightly I've got the opacity button turned down but I got it turned up to a hundred percent and see what's nice nice about it is I get kind of subtle with it I'm going to work into the foreground going to press really hard I've got it set on multiply that's what's happening let's set it to normal he's a lighten up just a little bit there we go so you can play with those uh play with the brush modes in the blend modes there we go look at that bring that up a little higher now the key to this kind of stuff is that you want to you want to get variances in your in the grasses so what we're doing right now is I'm just kind of laying down a bed of grass that we can work with but already you can see it's kind of cool let's just finish this out I'm going to finish playing this in bring some up hi see that there we go let's play with some other grass shapes so we got those here's another one that's more like small grass and come in here see that and it kind of points in different directions get in there whoops there we go they're good go ahead and lock that layer again actually no let's not lock that yet because I want to try some of these other brushes right here I want to get this guy again let's knock the size down just a hair I'm going to go a little I'm going to go a little darker it's because it's a different plant let's just go a little darker with it let's just play with that once again we're looking for places where you can vary up the plant life you don't want it to feel real repetitive there we go brush some up in there now I'll put some over here maybe see feels pretty good let's go back and grab our original grass and lay that over the top again just building it up building it up building it up see there we got a nice a nice feel happening there let's go ahead and lock that layer and you know we're thinking about this tree and it's been casting a shadow back here maybe there's other trees off-screen that are casting shadows so let's go ahead and get a nice cool green kind of going into the blue area let's grab that air brush again that air brush setting right and let's set that to multiply right there and we can paint in we can darken it you know we can paint in shadows the shadow coming across oh right there that feels pretty good just darken that right up now maybe we want to grab some grass maybe some of those grass stalks are in shadow so we'll come up and let's just paint some of those grass stalks let me blow that up a little bit so you can see it we'll just paint some of those grass stalks right on in shadow and see that we're getting a nice nice texture like so now let's turn the the multiply off go back to normal let's leave those brushstrokes I mean the grass stalks and because we're in shadow I'm going to make it nice and cool I'm lightly slightly hitting a few areas right over the top to create some contrast make that a little bigger there we go you see how quickly we can start building up some interest here see that now once again let's say we've got we say okay we know we feel it we're feeling like we got a little bit too much detail we're all ready let's grab this brush again well actually we want to go back to our smudge tool we're already still on that brush I'm going to make it a little bit larger and we can come in we can just soften what I'm doing I can just soften some of these graphs areas so it's not so detailed everywhere I'm just coming in and I'm softening up the bottom I'm going to turn off the lock area because I want to cover up some of these negative spaces I want to let those negative spaces just kind of blur and smear away see what I'm doing I'm just smearing away some of that detail and it just gives it it's a little easier to look at just getting rid of detail here and there once again remember you can always always always go back and add detail back in so I'm just just softening it getting it to feel a little better let's go to that layer underneath I'm going to soften some of those areas there there we go come back up on top into softening turn that there we go we're going to turn off go back to the bottom turn off the the lock on the lair and there we go now we're softening softening some of those background leaves pushing them back into the background look at that they're just softening right up there it's getting a great feel to it now let's go back in let's go back to our brushes knock that opacity down I want to add some make it normal there we go I want to add some ups on the wrong layer there we go I want to add some detail back in you can just brush over the top of it see that go back to multiply if you want brush over the top of it you guys see we're getting let's knock that up a little bit see that just put detail right back over the top you can always always always add detail back in or you can take it away but what these brushes enable you to do is kind of create variant you know for how repetitive they are you can really create some great varied looks to them so now we got this tree that's really kind of sitting in this field it feels actually pretty cool we've got some more brushes that we can play with look at these I'm going to create a layer underneath those are the grass that we put on top I'm going to grab some of these brushes here look at look at these in here now I'm gonna turn that off let's grab some nice color here listen dark somewhat dark I'm gonna whoops got that set to multiply we'll set that to normal there we go turn that off turning that up there we go now that's what I was looking for look at that turn that off let me get rid of that let's start over I'm going to shrink that down here see that we're getting some different plants varying up the plant life that's the key there we go get maybe in front of that tree see that kind of cool and once again lock those layers let's hit a nice gray cool let's come to our air brush not the size down a hair turn on the pressure sensitivity set it to multiply right here and let's just hit the bottoms of them maybe they go into shadow down there see that oh that's cool maybe hit those or maybe those are in the shadow of the tree well hit knock those back maybe that's in the shadow of the tree knock that back but we can see now oh shoot okay we want to go let's go back to our our our plant brush right here let's just paint it out we got to turn that off there we go just paint it in hope there we go set it to that's on multiply there we go that's perfect there look at that this all feels really good I've turned that off make this nice and dark lock the size down here we go I'm coming there oh there we go fill that in see nice get nice varied feel to it all that feels pretty cool look at the field that we're creating this is this really great organic kind of feel to everything I don't like these negative areas down here I'm going to create a layer on top I'm going to grab that color there let's grab let's just use our same brushes here let's just fill that in there fill it in there we go fill it in fill it in alright now we got some stuff going on on top your that feels pretty good huh we've got other ones if we grab if we grab this one it's kind of the same plant but now we can get more selective with just painting individual stocks we bring that up a little bit so you can see that see that or let's grab this one this one here gives us yet again a different plant species we'll just put that right over the top so look at this all the varied plant life we have going on let's say some of them are flowering let's create a layer on top of they'll actually we'll just leave it on there and let's grab maybe they're violent and look at this I've got this little flower right here that's a little flower brush it's darken it because those are in shadow we some of these are flooring it's already set on multiply let's set it to normal that way we'll get some plant yeah if you can see them right over the top right over here on the edges look at that see they've got a little just very quickly we're laying in with this little flower brush little purple flowers let's come back here to our layer that's underneath this grass layer remember that's one here turning it on and off let's create some flowers there I'm going to create a layer on top lighten up that color let's make it let's actually make it a little warmer a little brighter look at this we got flowers growing in the grasses and on these plants here some of them will hit them up in here there we go look how quick and easy it is to create these these little landscapes and what's nice about at being able to add this violet is is this ability to kind of play with varying colors you can open up the palate and the eye really responds to it let's say we want some yellow flowers in there maybe there's a few small daisies or something like that well let's come in and we'll just lightly lay those in right across here maybe this little patch of them right there and just well just lay them right in there we go that feels pretty good maybe a couple more in here look how cool that is there look at that now let's hit some light area so I'm going to turn that we're going to come back to this layer we're going to lock it again we keep this nice bright nice bright color right about there let's grab our grass this one right here we're going to knock that I'll Pat we're going to knock the opacity button down to about 59% we're going to go to overlay remember that overlay button that we use back on the leaves and now watch oh look we're going to hit some nice bright bright areas that's what the overlaid it really brightens up some of those areas so that we got some grass that's getting maybe catching some sunlight right along the edge there see that that feels pretty good now I'm going to create a layer on top I want to kind of get this all to feel like it's going into shadow evenly so I create a layer on top and I'm going to set the layer over on the right I'm going to set that to multiply I grab a nice cool mid-tone color there set this to normal and I'm going to grab my gradient tool hold down the bucket and come over to gradient right there I've got it set I'm going to set it down to about 41% now watch I'm going to bring it up from the bottom and I'm just darkening getting that to go into darkness there we go it just feels a little better to me there we go look what we've done we've really created kind of this cool tree maybe some of the leaves there we go let's do this I'm going to come down here into our grass section I'm going to turn that off turn the lock off I want to grab some of the leaves and let's make them brown and maybe we got some dead Brown leaves come back up to our brush let's grab our leaf again this guy right here that's the one it's kind of turned sideways remember let's come in here and let's just lightly turn that opacity up maybe some of the leaves fell down in there there we go once again it just adds a little varying color maybe some of them are up in here this had a couple to the to the tree you know maybe a couple of Brown leaves up in there it kind of rounds it out a little bit color wise right yeah it feels pretty good that background feels a little too even let's add a little mist a little atmosphere let's grab that I'm going to go a little cool with it let's go a little lighter let's just see what happens I'm going to grab my gradient tool and it's behind everything now let's just create a little atmosphere back there that feels pretty neat now let's go a little warmer let's go here a little brighter and we'll just bring it in this way there now let's create a layer underneath that and one last time oh you know what we can do we can grab let's make this dark come back up to our brushes we can create shrubs forgot to show you guys just remember those filler brushes that we had well let's take some of those just see what happens look at this let's create some shrubs in the background you know back in that mist there else round that out all right we go let's grab another one let's let's use this one I like that one get some nice shapes back there there look at that we created some shrubs back there pretty quickly create a layer on top there see that look how quickly we did that there there so there's a little composition using my tree and plant brushes and look how quickly we're able to do this I'm just going to kind of take you around the this just going to try and take you around look at the variances look at the look at all the different plants and values just by you know playing with these brush modes up top if you use the uh let me shrink that down there we go if you use these brush modes normal multiply overlay actually let's go ahead and do color dodge real quick because I want to show you what I do with that so we've got this cool thing going on here let's go ahead and save it let's save it as a landscape alright save it on my documents let's save it there now one of the things I like to do is I'm going to let's create a folder boom there we go I'm going to grab every right here and put it all into that folder there we got everything contained in that folder I'm going to double it and turn that one off and then that group right there I'm going to go up to edit or I'm sorry we're going to go to a lair come on there we go lair I'm going to merge that group so now it's all see that I've got it all combined now you can play with stuff now so we've got our color dodge let's go to our airbrush make it really big now color Dodge I love to play with because it can really brighten up areas so I'm going to knock this opacity way down 6% now grab a nice warm bright yellow let's knock the size down just a touch I'm going to brighten up some of these areas look at that see I'm sorry I'm brightening up some of these leaves catching maybe a little bit more light and it leaves the dark areas alone but brightens up there we go brighten that up a little bit there me a little bit there let's hit some of these leaves on the grasses down below getting nice and bright down there so you see what that does maybe some of the miss let's just try it let's I'm going to double that up turn that off let's come back here maybe some of the mist itself in the background let's knock that size up there we go maybe that's a little brighter brighten that up back there see what you can do you can really play with it you know and fog isn't always even maybe maybe here it's bright and then up here let's play with the maybe there's a little brightness in there like you see in clouds you know there we go get a nice brightness there now see what we done that's kind of cool the other thing you can do again remember we have our grab our smear tool we've got that little grass setting what if we played with softening some of that background what if we soften some of these areas back here oh look at that yeah see I'm pushing that right back look at this pushing us right back into the mist oh yeah lose some of those details we don't need all those details there push it right back into the mist right here push it right back into the mists and the higher I go the more blends with this with the sky there well the right words we get the most contrast I'm going to leave that I'm going to leave that detail but some of these other areas I'm just going to soften that soften that soften some of these other edges maybe some of these grasses can definitely soften some of this area here I'm just lightly brushing over some of these real contrasting areas with my blend tool but using our the smudge tool I guess but using the grass as the brush to blend with it creates a really great effect look how foggy and misty and Atmospheric that feels just going to knock the size down let's soften some of that tree edge there soften some of this and I write in here see these edges on some of these grasses look at the landscape we created it's pretty cool it's a lot of fun anyway that's a demo on using some of these brushes get in there play with the blend modes play with this with the smudge tool just have fun with them remember you've got the tree trunk brush where you can just create the trunk and then all the branches that you can build the branches on to create really cool silhouettes where you can then remember lock that layer that's a real key lock the layer and then add leaves and add color and add all kinds of fun to it you can take that turn the lock off and you can go back and smudge and smear edges and just come up with something that looks really painterly have fun with it these brushes will really open up new possibilities for you so go out and have fun I really appreciate you using them and buying them and and spread the word because I've got a lot more coming down the road I've got some water brushes that are going to be coming but anyway enjoy I'm glad to share these with you and have a great day thanks bye

Channel: The Art of Aaron Blaise

Views: 63,939

Rating: 4.9702048 out of 5

Keywords: Aaron's Art Tips, tutorial, lesson, Adobe Photoshop (Software), landscape, digital art, Drawing, digital painting, Painting, Artist, custom brushes, Software (album), Brush, trees, Visual Arts (Field Of Study), Photoshop, nature, Artist (Project Role), Illustrator (Profession), Illustration (Industry)

Id: C_A6K1HXpuE

Length: 52min 49sec (3169 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 27 2014