“Pen”, which is solid and doesn’t blend, “Brush”, which is similar to pen but blends with whatever colour is underneath it, “Eraser” removes any colour, “AirBrush” is like “Brush” but has blurry edges, “Water” has hardly any colour, but can blend two colours together without adding any.
Right click on one of these boxes and choose an option to base your brush off. Either right click on your new brush and select “Options,” or double click it. This will open the “Custom Tool” menu. In the menu, you can change the name, description, stroke and pressure stabilizers, and a shortcut key which you can press to automatically select your brush.
The four black icons directly below the brush selection control how blurry the edges of your brushes are. “Min Size” determines how small your brush can get when pressing lightly on a pen tablet. “Density” is how opaque or transparent the brush is. The “(simple circle)” drop-down menu lets you choose the shape of the brush and the “(no texture)” one gives the brush an overlay, the sliders nest to the drop-down menus control how strongly these settings appear. Blending controls how much the brush colour blends with the colours around it. Dilution is how much colour your brush hold when it goes over other colours. Persistence determines how long the brush holds the colour over unpainted areas when it blends with something.
“Min Density” is the same as “Min Size” mentioned in the previous step, but this affects density instead of size. “Max Density Pressure” is how much pressure it takes to get to 100% density. “Hard Soft” is for how much pressure you use when using the brush, hard meaning you push down a lot and soft for more gentle people.
An “RGB Slider” that lets you select a colour by mixing different amounts of red, green, and blue, A “HSV Slider” is an alternative way to change the hue, saturation, and brightness, The “Colour Mixer” gives you a slider to put two colours in to select and colour in between them, “Swatches” lets you save colours for later by right-clicking and selecting “Set”, A “Scratchpad” allows you to test your colours and brush settings without modifying your artwork.
On each layer there is an image of an eye, clicking the icon will toggle the visibility of the layer. Above the list of layers there is an icon of a blank page with a folded corner, clicking that will give you a new layer. Next to the new layer button is the “New Linework Layer” button. This gives you a special kind of layer that has a different set of tools. Next to that is the “New Layer Set” button, pressing it gives you folders you can put groups of layers in and control them as if they’re one. Underneath the new layers there are two ways to merge a layer into the one beneath it. Under the new set button there’s a button to clear the layer you have selected and next to that you can press the trash can to delete the layer entirely. Double-clicking the layer will let you change it’s name.
Texture gives your layer a texture. Scale changes how big the texture appears and the slider to the right changes how strongly the texture appears. Effect is very similar to texture. Mode effects how the layer interacts with other layers. Opacity controls the transparency Preserve opacity prevents you from painting any where on the layer that isn’t already painted Clipping group is similar to preserve opacity but it is based off hat is on the layers below it instead of itself and and everything out of the visible area still exists it’s just hidden until you uncheck the box or add the the layer below.
