Get to grips with Brushes

Visual development artist , we shows you how to create stunning digital concept art on the iPad using the Brushes app

Brushes is arguably the fastest and most intuitive painting application on iPad right now.There are other painting applications, such as Autodesk's excellent SketchBook Pro, but Brushes is my personal favourite because it's very simple and easy to use. In this tutorial I'll walk you through how I created the image on the right - called 'Market Street'- in Brushes. I also used a Pogo Sketch Stylus (see www.tenonedesign.com). Head to the App Stone to purchase Brushes - it only costs £4.99 - and get painting] 

01 - To get started, tap the Brush Properties icon (next to the Brush icon) at the bottom of the Brushes interface. 

For the initial sketch, set a thin brush by sliding the size slider down. At this stage you should have two layers: the background layer and the sketch layer.
Set them up by clicking the Layers icon at the bottom of the interface. Notice that I'm not using white for the 

 background colour. That way I can work in both directions: highlights and shadows. If you start out with a white canvas at the beginning, you already have the brightest colour in your image and it's harder to work out the values once you start painting. Change the colour of the background to a neutral grey by using the Fill tool. Note that the line drawing layer should always stay on top of other layers.

02 -  Create another layer for the characters in your painting.This means you can move, scale and rotate them without changing the background sketch underneath. I'm going to flatten the layers eventually but it's good to keep them all separate in the beginning so you can experiment with the composition as you go along.

03 - Once I'm satisfied with how the sketch looks, I flatten the line drawing layers and lower the opacity of the merged layer (both using the Layers panel). From this point on, I won't touch the line drawing layer again. I will simply use it as my guide for the painting. As I move on with the illustration, I keep lowering the opacity of the line drawing layer until I don't need it any more. 

04 - I start blocking in the shadow areas using a larger brush. It's important to remember to work on the entire image with the same level of detail the whole time. That way you can stop working whenever you choose to and the painting will look finished. Avoid getting carried away with the details too soon. Paint quickly focusing on lighting and composition instead. 

 Brushes Viewer

t he Brushes Viewer app enables you to open your ipad painting files on your Mac or PC. Download it from www.brushesapp.com The app also enables you to play back you t painting process at a higher resolution arid also export as an uncompressed TIFF file, which is ideal for print.

05 - Once I've finished painting the main shadow areas, I'm ready to move over to the highlights. I usually start working on the environment first. Once 1 have all my light sources and light directions laid down on the canvas, 1 can start working on the lighting of the various characters in the scene. 

06 - Now 1 can start integrating the characters. 1 use the same technique I used for the environment. Starting with a midtone, I then work on the shadow areas and the highlighted areas. I have all the elements of the painting blocked in, so I can hide the line drawing layer as I no longer need to use it. 

07 - Always remind yourself where the light in the scene is coming from. Here, I have a strong key light coming from the upper right corner, a sky fill from the top and plenty of bounce light from the wails and the ground as well, I add more highlights and shadows. 

08 - To emphasise the level of detail, I like to add a texture layer on top of the whole image. Therefore I create a new layer with Blend Mode set to Overlay. 1 choose a random texture brush and paint over the whole image. I like to experiment with colours and values to create different effects. Also, I've used the Overlay blend mode to push the warmth of the colours. 

09 - To finish the image, 1 create another layer with Blend Mode set to Overlay, and use it to make some minor colour adjustments. Once I'm done with the painting, I can email the Brushes file to myself and open it using the Brushes Viewer application.