Good brush sets for a newbie? - What to get and why + usage questions

[madeloncreates]

I'm planning on getting Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher and was wondering if it would be a good idea to get some brush packs along with them now they're 50% off. Good to know:

• I'm a beginner with little experience in similar well known programs.
• I get a bit too excited sometimes when I see cool additions because they inspire me and give me ideas, but then I don't always execute them.

Hence my question is if it's worth to get some of these packs and if so, why. I plan on learning more about graphic design in general and for example would like to get better at creating typography pieces, illustrations/drawings (in small books with both text and images) and content for social media.

The packs that to me seem to have useful options are these:

1. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/eleni-debo-illustration-brush-pack/
2. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/neptune-brush-pack/
3. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/stipple-studio-by-true-grit-texture-supply/
4. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/the-rusty-nib-by-true-grit-texture-supply/
5. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/daub-watercolours-and-washes-brush-pack/
6. https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/product/chunky-markers-brush-pack/

My specific questions are:

• Which of these packs (or others) should I get and why?
• Which things aren't as useful for a beginner and which sets could be a really good addition?
• Do some of these overlap and if so, which one would you pick (and why)?

Something I also wondered, number 5 shows the brushes in specific rainbow colours. Do I only get to use these brushes in these colours or can I change those?

Would love to get some advice on this!

Edited June 16, 2021 by madeloncreates

[thomaso]

Hi madeloncreates,
Welcome to the Affinity Forums!

Did you download already the trial version to see + experience the brushes included by default? Check in both vector + pixel persona of AD.

Some (or all?) items in the Affinity Store mention in their description a link to an article about this item in the online magazine "Affinity Spotlight", e.g. https://affinityspotlight.com/article/get-the-rusty-nib-by-true-grit-from-the-affinity-store/, and some products give more details on their own website.

Especially as a beginner I'd rather prefer to prevent me from input overload for easier concentration on learning the basic principles. Brushes can be quite tricky, in particular the texture ones with many individual options. No one would be able to seriously tell what brush(es) maybe useful for you without knowing your style & workflow(s). Many roads lead to Rome – brushes, too. And, yes, some brushes in various sets can appear quite similar and thereby like duplicates of existing ones, the app's default brushes included.

You need to get familiar with brushes to make obvious experiences – and vice versa. Assuming you have been drawing or painting before, physically on paper, at least in kindergarden, you did not start with choosing the complete set of available colors, paints, inks, pens or tools but rather refined those by increased skills, kind of automatically.

I am confident the current special offer will not be the last one for these and future products. No need to hurry.

ps: It's not that I don't want you to support Affinity and friends

 

 

[Scungio]

One thing to be aware of is that many of the brush packs, add ons that are on sale in the Serif store are really just the tip of the iceberg of what is available for the Affinity apps.

For example, the Neptune brush pack by Frankentoon, he has something like 24 more products over on his site https://frankentoonstudio.com. Brush packs, texture packs, macros, and free lessons and videos of him using his products.

Retro Supply Co https://www.retrosupply.co/collections/affinity for years made their brushes/textures/add ons for Adobe but now many of their releases are made to use with Affinity.

Design Cuts https://www.designcuts.com/product-category/affinity/ has many products for the Affinity apps. Trailhead Design Co brushes and packs being some of my favorites.

The above mentioned people have some free samples that you can find and install to get a feel of what they are offering. It is of course hard to recommend specifically what is good because everyone is different in their tastes/styles, etc.

Not to offend anyone but one of my pet peeves is when I hear the complaints of how come this Photoshop brush doesn't work in Affinity, etc. 

I left Adobe but I don't expect Serif to magically make it possible to import with perfection Photoshop brushes. The solution is to get 3rd party artists/creators to develop brushes, textures, add ons, plugins FOR Affinity. To make the best possible brushes and packs for Affinity that takes advantage of the features of the Affinity line. 

Now some might balk at some of the prices but they all have sales and offer bundles and quality products shouldn't be cheap. Just know that the 3rd party community developing brushes and add ons is getting better every day.

I would love to see Serif develop a native plugin API for the Affinity line. Yes, you can use some Photoshop plugins but it is really hit or miss, not really a first class experience, don't we deserve better? If they (Serif) build that native API I think the plugin developers would respond in kind. Or maybe I am delusional, hard to say, but speaking personally I have spent probably 2-3 times as much money for 3rd party brushes/packs than I did for the Affinity apps. I don't think that is unusual.

I would love to have a plugin for Designer that allows for a more seamless export to the animation app Moho. Right now I have to go through a tedious workaround with SVG and faux registrations, that works but maybe a native Affinity API could allow a plugin that makes it painless and fun to do so? Aw, well, sorry to get sidetracked, fun to daydream sometimes. 

[madeloncreates]

21 hours ago, thomaso said:

Hi madeloncreates,
Welcome to the Affinity Forums!

Did you download already the trial version to see + experience the brushes included by default? Check in both vector + pixel persona of AD.

Some (or all?) items in the Affinity Store mention in their description a link to an article about this item in the online magazine "Affinity Spotlight", e.g. https://affinityspotlight.com/article/get-the-rusty-nib-by-true-grit-from-the-affinity-store/, and some products give more details on their own website.

Especially as a beginner I'd rather prefer to prevent me from input overload for easier concentration on learning the basic principles. Brushes can be quite tricky, in particular the texture ones with many individual options. No one would be able to seriously tell what brush(es) maybe useful for you without knowing your style & workflow(s). Many roads lead to Rome – brushes, too. And, yes, some brushes in various sets can appear quite similar and thereby like duplicates of existing ones, the app's default brushes included.

You need to get familiar with brushes to make obvious experiences – and vice versa. Assuming you have been drawing or painting before, physically on paper, at least in kindergarden, you did not start with choosing the complete set of available colors, paints, inks, pens or tools but rather refined those by increased skills, kind of automatically.

I am confident the current special offer will not be the last one for these and future products. No need to hurry.

ps: It's not that I don't want you to support Affinity and friends

 

 

Thank you!

I've downloaded all three trial versions, but need to check out the brushes. As I haven't used brushes that often I was wondering if one of these or other brush packs are really useful no matter what you do. But I think I may indeed learn the basics of the programs first so I get a better idea of what I want to use them for and what kind of brushes I'm missing.

I will check out the articles (and websites) to get a bit more info on them!

[madeloncreates]

19 hours ago, Scungio said:

One thing to be aware of is that many of the brush packs, add ons that are on sale in the Serif store are really just the tip of the iceberg of what is available for the Affinity apps.

For example, the Neptune brush pack by Frankentoon, he has something like 24 more products over on his site https://frankentoonstudio.com. Brush packs, texture packs, macros, and free lessons and videos of him using his products.

Retro Supply Co https://www.retrosupply.co/collections/affinity for years made their brushes/textures/add ons for Adobe but now many of their releases are made to use with Affinity.

Design Cuts https://www.designcuts.com/product-category/affinity/ has many products for the Affinity apps. Trailhead Design Co brushes and packs being some of my favorites.

The above mentioned people have some free samples that you can find and install to get a feel of what they are offering. It is of course hard to recommend specifically what is good because everyone is different in their tastes/styles, etc.

Not to offend anyone but one of my pet peeves is when I hear the complaints of how come this Photoshop brush doesn't work in Affinity, etc. 

I left Adobe but I don't expect Serif to magically make it possible to import with perfection Photoshop brushes. The solution is to get 3rd party artists/creators to develop brushes, textures, add ons, plugins FOR Affinity. To make the best possible brushes and packs for Affinity that takes advantage of the features of the Affinity line. 

Now some might balk at some of the prices but they all have sales and offer bundles and quality products shouldn't be cheap. Just know that the 3rd party community developing brushes and add ons is getting better every day.

I would love to see Serif develop a native plugin API for the Affinity line. Yes, you can use some Photoshop plugins but it is really hit or miss, not really a first class experience, don't we deserve better? If they (Serif) build that native API I think the plugin developers would respond in kind. Or maybe I am delusional, hard to say, but speaking personally I have spent probably 2-3 times as much money for 3rd party brushes/packs than I did for the Affinity apps. I don't think that is unusual.

I would love to have a plugin for Designer that allows for a more seamless export to the animation app Moho. Right now I have to go through a tedious workaround with SVG and faux registrations, that works but maybe a native Affinity API could allow a plugin that makes it painless and fun to do so? Aw, well, sorry to get sidetracked, fun to daydream sometimes. 

Thank you for the tips! It seems like a smart idea to try some of the free samples.

I can imagine people want to use what they're used to, but it does make sense to me things don't work for Affinity as it's another company. Like you don't expect a Nintendo game to work on a Playstation. I'm not quite familiar with Serif or APIs, but anything that makes things easier is nice to have of course. I'm definitely excited to try some things out and see how they work.

[thomaso]

1 minute ago, madeloncreates said:

I was wondering if one of these or other brush packs are really useful no matter what you do.

Just check the various brushes in your app trial version. You will notice there are quite a lot in both AD personas (vector & pixel), they are actually created and meant by Serif developers for general use, "no matter what you do". Also note that you can create brushes yourself in case you want a specific brush.

[iconoclast]

Hi madeloncreates!

For me it was verry helpful first to learn how brushes work and what are they made of. You can do that by stuying the brushes you already have. Most of the brushes - for Photo as well as for Designer - are based on images. So it is not too difficult to create your own brushes. But, of course, the brush packs on the Affinity Store are also great. And if you want to have them, you shouldn't think too long, because the special offer (50% off) will end soon.

[madeloncreates]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:24 AM, thomaso said:

Just check the various brushes in your app trial version. You will notice there are quite a lot in both AD personas (vector & pixel), they are actually created and meant by Serif developers for general use, "no matter what you do". Also note that you can create brushes yourself in case you want a specific brush.

You're right. There are quite a few! What I do still wonder, I see mostly pixel/raster brushes and not so many vector brushes. Why would I use one over the other?

[madeloncreates]

On 6/18/2021 at 12:30 AM, iconoclast said:

Hi madeloncreates!

For me it was verry helpful first to learn how brushes work and what are they made of. You can do that by stuying the brushes you already have. Most of the brushes - for Photo as well as for Designer - are based on images. So it is not too difficult to create your own brushes. But, of course, the brush packs on the Affinity Store are also great. And if you want to have them, you shouldn't think too long, because the special offer (50% off) will end soon.

I'm down to 5 sets at the moment haha. But I do wonder if I'm getting too many raster brushes (saying I'd get all I have on my list right now) and too little vector brushes.

[thomaso]

10 minutes ago, madeloncreates said:

What I do still wonder, I see mostly pixel/raster brushes and not so many vector brushes. Why would I use one over the other?

The accessible brushes can vary with the "persona" you are currently in. Also the term "vector" brush may feel ambiguous because it's used for brushes which draw bezier curves (vector) but do create a texture fill for their stroke which is made of a raster image (pixel). Unfortunately though the brushes panel in the two personas seem to have most categories in common (Acrylics … Inks … Pens etc) the brushes in each persona of one category can be quite different. – The choice for a brush depends on the visual impression you want to achieve, in particular for those which simulate physical brushes with texture and specific behavior.

  …

[madeloncreates]

19 hours ago, thomaso said:

The accessible brushes can vary with the "persona" you are currently in. Also the term "vector" brush may feel ambiguous because it's used for brushes which draw bezier curves (vector) but do create a texture fill for their stroke which is made of a raster image (pixel). Unfortunately though the brushes panel in the two personas seem to have most categories in common (Acrylics … Inks … Pens etc) the brushes in each persona of one category can be quite different. – The choice for a brush depends on the visual impression you want to achieve, in particular for those which simulate physical brushes with texture and specific behavior.

  …

Thank you! I thought it may affect the quality of what I'd be creating, and in some way it does of course because you lose the cleanness and sharpness of the vector, but you can also add nice effects by using the raster brushes.

I guess it depends on what you're making whether or not you combine vector with raster? In a logo it wouldn't make a lot of sense as that way you'd lose the ability to resize and still keep a high quality/sharp logo. But when you're making an illustration, the effects can be more important than the sharpness of a vector and ability to resize. Does that summarize it correctly? 

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, madeloncreates said:

I guess it depends on what you're making whether or not you combine vector with raster? In a logo it wouldn't make a lot of sense as that way you'd lose the ability to resize and still keep a high quality/sharp logo. But when you're making an illustration, the effects can be more important than the sharpness of a vector and ability to resize. Does that summarize it correctly? 

👍

… while you don't have free choice about vector or pixel, there is kind of restriction for some features/functions, being available only in one of both. And sometimes you need to rasterize an object (layer) to enable a certain task, without the need to switch the persona.

[iconoclast]

50 minutes ago, madeloncreates said:

Thank you! I thought it may affect the quality of what I'd be creating, and in some way it does of course because you lose the cleanness and sharpness of the vector, but you can also add nice effects by using the raster brushes.

I guess it depends on what you're making whether or not you combine vector with raster? In a logo it wouldn't make a lot of sense as that way you'd lose the ability to resize and still keep a high quality/sharp logo. But when you're making an illustration, the effects can be more important than the sharpness of a vector and ability to resize. Does that summarize it correctly? 

Only the Solid Brushes in Designer draw true vector strokes. You will see that if you try to expand a brushstroke ("Layer" menu, "Expand Stroke") of a Textured Intensity Brush or a Textured Image Brush. The last two kinds of brushes only create strokes that consist of pixels aligned to a curve (vector).