Free Texture

So I was making some textures today for an illustration I am working on. *Note that I do my work digitally. An important part to creating good digital art is to make it feel as "real" as possible (like a real painting). Some great artists can pull off some great digital stuff- You can totally tell it's digital, not a lot of texture involved. But for the most part I've noticed that it really is a pleasing piece of art if it feels like you created it with your own brush. To help with that I like to make realistic textures, or find some free ones online and apply it on top (as well as in my digital brush in Photoshop).

Here's a easy fast way to apply texture to your artwork:

Open the texture in Photoshop, drag it onto your artwork using the arrow button.

Using 'Free Transform' you can make it fill the whole image to the size you need- (Make sure it's already close to the same size as your image- if it's too small of a file and you blow it up, it will just look pixelated and yucky).

Go to the 'Layers' tab and right where it says "normal" click the arrow next to it and you'll see a selection of options to choose from-
I like to choose "Overlay" most of the time (sometimes "multiply")

Up to the right where it says "opacity" change it anywhere between 20%-65%- depending on what looks and feels right to you. Just make sure to "keep it real" if you know what I mean.

Tomorrow I'll share another texture and some tips on applying it to the actual brush itself.



Click the image for the full size:

 

Have fun! :)