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Enhance Effects With the Painter F-X Brush!Normally, I like to paint without relying on the graphics program. However, the Painter F-X brush is a discussion good to pass up! It’s a double edge sword in that it does a few very useful effects that I find essential to painting.And yet, there’s no need to depend on it! Before we continue, we should look at the photo brush variants one more time. If you recall, I mentioned that the photo brush variants includes some important tools that are usually separated in Photohop. In Photoshop, the blur icon hides the blur, smudge, and sharpen tools. In Painter, these tools exist in the photo brush variants. They are named: blur, diffuse blur, and sharpen respectively. They are fairly similar in how they behave. As well, the options available are similar to previous photo brush variants. Use these tools to its full advantage whenever you can! Now, with that out of the way, time to look at the Painter F-X brush! 1. Locating the Painter F-X brushLike always, look up the paint brush icon in the main window. And from there, look at the categories available. In alphabetical order, look for the F-X brush category. The icon for the F-X category is a wand with a star at the top. Once you have done that, there are few F-X brush variants that are quite useful to creating needed effects.
There are about 14 different effects that you can choose from. However, we are only going to look at a few that I find useful. Like always, you don’t want to cover yourself in too many brush variants. Just stick with learning a few for now. 2. What Painter F-X brush variants are useful?Obviously, this is dependent on your own preference and the digital 2d painting that you are aiming to create. But for the most part, there are some unique F-X brushes that are very handy. What I mean by ‘handy’ is that it allows you to create special effects without having to go through too many steps, in other brushes, to get the same effect. The few that I find useful are the fairy dust, fire, furry brush, glow, shattered, piano keys, and squeegee. I’ll use the furry brush variant as an example. Click on the icon that looks like a dark circle. From there, open up a new file to experiment on. When you paint with the furry brush variant, you will notice that it creates a nice trail of spiked fur. It is noticeable that the effects that it creates will take hours on end if you were to do it one brush stroke at a time! There is definitely an advantage in that it creates simple patches of fur, if you were to drawing animals, very easily. What’s more, if you set the brush on a very large setting, you can even get a starburst effect! Give them all a try and see what you find useful! 3. Understand the Painter F-X brush tool limitationsAlthough it’s nice to have these special effects, be careful that it’s still a computer program. That means that it does calculate other instances that could make the effect real. You need to have real artistic knowledge before you can use these tools.For example, if I use the piano keys variant to create a string of books in a bookshelf, it doesn’t calculate how light is hitting the bookshelf. If I use the shattered variant to create shattered glass, how will the random shapes of glass created be pieced together to create the original window or mirror? As well, if I use the furry brush tool, how will it calculate light and perspective? The answer is no. Whatever options you choose to manipulate the Painter F-X brush tool, it’s not going to help you with any of those questions. This is why you still need to combine it with other tools that you have learned! For example, you can use the F-X variants to create a specific texture you desire, switch it to the photo brush, and then use it to highlight or darken areas with the dodge and burn variants. Or, you can continue on with manually painting the needed effects that blends in the F-X with your own brush strokes. 4. Plan ahead with the Painter F-X brush!Planning the effects ahead of time takes knowledge as an artist, the program, and of the tool itself. For example, we can use the fire variant to illustrate how it interacts with the other tools in Painter. For one thing, this particular variant is dependant on the layer that it’s on. If it’s on a separate layer, the variant won’t work. However, if it’s on the same layer, then the variant will work very nicely as it is dependant on the color that’s already there. Having it on another layer means there’s no other colors to draw from! That’s why it won’t work! Another thing is that this tool is hard to reverse when you make a mistake. If it happens, and you have gone over the limited amount of undo functions, it may take you longer to repaint it, as you need to correct what the F-X brush has left behind. Lastly, you need to ask yourself if you can do the effects with the tools you have already. This is why you need to develop your experiences in the basic tools and then use it to see if you can simulate the effects of the F-X brush. You may find that your own skills will be better off in the long run in some instances! So experiment and keep motivated to learn as much as you can!
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