What is the DAUB PaintBox Brush Pack?
PaintBox is a collection of raster brushes that have been handcrafted with digital artists and classic painters in mind. With 80 raster brushes in total this brush pack harnesses the latest brush engine power of Affinity Designer on iPad and Affinity Photo on iPad. They feel amazing to use on iPad and give digital painters tools to create realistic and natural brush strokes.
Providing a vast selection of gouaches, oils and acrylics, the aim of this brush pack is to give you the brushes you need to create expressive colour dynamics, impasto and thickness effects with Affinity on iPad.
What’s included:
- DAUB PaintBox Oils (20 brushes)
- DAUB PaintBox Gouaches (20 brushes)
- DAUB PaintBox Blockers (20 brushes)
- DAUB PaintBox Off-Beats (20 brushes)
IMPORTANT NOTE: These brushes have been specially made for use with Affinity Designer for iPad (1.7) and Affinity Photo for iPad (1.7) only.
See the brushes in action…
Paolo shows us below how to add detail using the DAUB Chisel packed bristles that are included in the DAUB Paintbox brush pack adding an authentic looking paint effect in your work:
Working with the DAUB® PaintBox Brushes
The PaintBox brushes allows infinite possibilities and effects in digital painting. DAUB® PaintBox brush pack contains specialised brushes which have been designed to reproduce classic painting techniques. Paolo Limoncelli, the brains behind the brushes, shows us below how the brush pack can be combined with the software to seamlessly reproduce a classic painting approach by creating a piece he calls ‘The flaming fox’.
Step 1: Sketching
To start your project off you’ll want to create a rough outline sketch of your subject, in this case the fox, as a base for your work. I recommend using a simple brush for the concept outline such as one of the DAUB® Ink brushes that can already be found in the software. You don’t want to go into too much detail here, just create the rough outline as you see below.
Step 2: Shaping volumes and lighting
Once the sketch is complete and you have your rough guides, you can begin to shape the image and start adding volume. To do so, use a combination of the Smooth Chisel Oil and the Classic Round Impasto from the Paintbox – Oils brushes. This is the first stage of painting so it can be pretty quick, it doesn’t need any specific care or detail other than defining volumes and lighting.
For the light areas use a yellow or an orange shade with dark red and blue/violet tones to define the mid-tones and shadows.
I recommend keeping the painting as loose as possible. As these brushes allow loose painting by design they are perfect for this. You don’t want to create too much of a refined look at this stage other than possibly adding the detail of the eyes.
Step 3: Detailing
During the detailing stage you can begin to add the fine strokes and depth and detail. The Chisel Packed Bristles—again from the PaintBox brush oils are the only brushes I used here in a small/medium size. The fine strokes once built up begin to create the flowing fur of the fox.
To keep things clean, take a break from the screen so you don’t lose focus, then stack the further levels of detail into clipped layers.
Step 4: Developing the background
Now the fox is finished, we can start to develop an environment around him. For this tutorial we’ll add a hint of a forest.
To do this in a quick and convincing way the PaintBox – Blockers set is perfect for creating the background. These brushes are designed to cover large areas whilst keeping the natural media effect. The brushes I used here are DAUB® Vincent 01 and Vincent Fine as a hint to the well recognised Van Gogh signature style.
Once again we’re going to progressively develop the background using clipped layers.
For shadows and highlights the Vincent Rade brush can be used to create a rough texture.
Step 5: Final touches
To finish off the painting I used the Layer FX with a Radial gradient going from white to violet (the colour used for shadows). This tone helps to lower the bright tones of the tail.
You could then add some flames to add a credible glow around the fox using the DAUB® Stucco 01 and Vincent Rade, then lower the opacity of the layer to 40%. The final touch is the done with an Adjustment Curve layer, tweaking the Master Curve and the Blue channel.
More inspiration
Paolo’s expertise has helped shape the Affinity brush engine and he is our resident Affinity brush expert. His beautiful, effortless, illustration and teaching style has featured in both the Affinity Photo Workbook and Affinity Designer Workbook.
Here is a variety of artwork created by Paolo with these latest DAUB brushes, all of which use techniques that can be re-created using the DAUB® PaintBox brush pack available in the Affinity Store.
Get the DAUB® PaintBox Brush pack today!
You can purchase Paolo’s DAUB® PaintBox brush pack from the Affinity Store. These raster brushes are compatible with both Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer on iPad.
About the maker
To learn more about Paolo Limoncelli you can read our past interview with him here or check out his UI/UX design portfolio at www.ux-designstudio.com and his artwork at www.paololimoncelli.com.
We really recommend you check out more of DAUB®’s brushes for Affinity Designer and Photo from the official DAUB website too at www.daub-brushes.com.
You can also see Paolo’s Affinity tutorials in the Affinity Designer Workbook and the Affinity Photo Workbook.