Friend told me to stop using default cloud brushes and I got defensive

My buddy Mark who does concept art for a living kept saying my pieces looked muddy because of those cheap default Photoshop cloud brushes. I thought he was just being pretentious but I finally switched to some custom chalk brushes from his Gumroad last week. The difference in texture and depth was so obvious I kinda owe him an apology, has anyone else had a friend call out their tool choices and turn out to be right?

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2 Comments

avery_roberts672mo ago

Gumroad is a hype machine. I've been using default PS cloud brushes for ten years. Sold prints at three different conventions last month. Nobody said my clouds looked muddy. They said they looked dreamy. Tools don't fix composition or values. That's the real problem not the brush engine.

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hall.quinn2mo ago

Have you ever actually stopped to check if your local art store's printer paper is the same batch every time? Because that messed with my values way more than any brush ever did. Composition is definitely the bigger issue, but nobody talks about how hard it is to get consistent paper stock for prints. If your clouds are looking muddy, try painting in grayscale first before adding color. It forces you to sort out your values separate from the hues. Then just layer a color overlay on top and watch everything pop. Saved my convention sales a couple years ago.

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