Monday, November 16, 2009

Broken Links Fixed

Sorry about the broken file links folks. All files should be linking properly now.

Stumpy Pencil, V2

I started this blog a year or two ago with a Photoshop brush for a stumpy pencil, my favorite drawing tool. Flat, soft and dark, crudely sharpened with a knife, a stumpy pencil lays down such an effortless line that it is a great tool for thinking on paper. My Photoshop effort became quite popular, and even in the long interval when I was not posting, I would still get feedback from people who had found it while searching for Photoshop tools.

Well it's still one of my most used brushes. I go to it first when I am sketching out ideas in Photoshop. I even use it for finishing when I want the final output to have a rougher look. I like it's speed and responsiveness. It's texture is convincing enough that I have actually used it to make revisions to actual scanned pencil drawings.

But, as with any digital tool that emulates a analog tool, it's never perfect. So I continue to tweak and refine and expand on it, evolving it and making it more effective with time. I present this new revised version to you today.

The tool has been expanded and refined. Let me break down the Tool set for you. It includes:

- Brush Tool: "Pencil: Stumpy 6 pt." - The original tool, slightly modified but otherwise as it was. It's fast, textured, with a chiseled shape. It goes dark easily. It's fun to draw with.








- Brush Tool: "Pencil: Round 3 pt." - A similar pencil, but with a different shaped Brush. Good for tightening up, or when the chiseled head of the Stumpy Pencil isn't working.







- Brush Tool: "Pencil: Graphite 30 pt." - This one has a gray color included to emulate the look of a soft graphite pencil.








- Eraser Tool: "Pencil: Stumpy 6 pt. Eraser" - an eraser which duplicates the feel and texture of the Stumpy Pencil, so you can erase an retain the textured quality of the line.







- Eraser Tool: "Pencil: Pink Tip Eraser" - Emulates the feel of an attached pencil eraser, with a slight grainy texture and medium flow. I wish I could make it so that it left little pink eraser shavings behind, but there's only so much Photoshop can do.









You can download the whole set here: Stumpy Pencil v.2

Edit 1/30/2020: If you use Procreate on the iPad, I have translated the brush to use in the app. See this post for details.

If you like the tool and use it, please send me some of your artwork to post on the blog! Make sure to include how you want to be credited. Enjoy!