By Cher Threinen-Pendarvis

This month's Painter Wow! Tip shows you how to build a Wow! RealBristle Gouache brush with CorelÒ PainterÔ X, which you can use to paint tapered opaque strokes that have subtle bristle marks. Both the standard WacomÒ IntuosÒ 3 Grip Pen and the WacomÒ 6D Art Pen can take advantage of this brush. To demonstrate the strokes in this tip, I used my Wacom 6D Art Pen.

Real Barrel (shown below) was painted with a custom Wow! RealBristle Gouache brush, and the default RealBristle Brushes and Airbrushes.

Opening a new file and setting up

To test your brush as you are building it, choose File menu > Open, and create a new file that measures 500 ´ 200 pixels. The RealBristle Brushes are sensitive to Brush Tracking. Before you begin to paint, it's important to set up the Brush Tracking so you can customize how Painter interprets the input of your stylus, including controls such as pressure and speed. For WindowsÒ users, choose Edit menu > Preferences > Brush Tracking. For Mac OSÒ X users, choose Corel Painter X menu > Preferences > Brush Tracking. Make a brush stroke with your stylus by using your desired pressure and speed.

Choosing the brush and making a stroke

You can build your own custom Gouache brush by adding settings to the brush that will allow it to paint with Real Bristle capabilities. From the Brush Selector bar, choose the Fine Round Gouache variant of Gouache brush category.

Now use your stylus to paint an expressive, curved stroke with this default Gouache brush. I used my Wacom 6D Art Pen to paint my stroke, and rotated the pen slightly as I finished the stroke. You can see the tilt, bearing and rotation indicated by the Enhanced Brush Ghost. To turn on the Enhanced Brush Ghost, Windows users choose Edit menu > Preferences > General, and enable the Enhanced Brush Ghost check box. For Mac OS X users, choose Corel Painter X menu > Preferences > General, and enable the Enhanced Brush Ghost check box. The circle in the Enhanced Brush Ghost represents the brush size and the line indicates the tile and bearing of the stylus. If you are using a 6D Art Pen, a small dot will appear on the circle, indicating the rotation of the stylus.

The brush stroke was painted with the default Fine Round variant of Gouache. The tiny dot in the Enhanced Brush Ghost indicates the degree of rotation.

Adding the RealBristle settings

The RealBristle section of the Brush Controls contains settings for RealBristle brushes. Open the RealBristle section, by choosing Window menu > Brush Controls > Show RealBristle, and turn on the Enable RealBristle checkbox. Now make a brush stroke, and you'll notice the changes that the default RealBristle settings make to the brush.

This brush stroke was painted using the 6D Art Pen. The default RealBristle settings give the Gouache brush a broader stroke and more noticeable bristles, which appear to carry less paint.

To build the Wow! Gouache brush with settings for a soft brush, I used the following settings in the RealBristle section of the Brush Controls. I designed a sensitive brush that would paint tapered ends on the strokes when I tilted my stylus. The settings are as follows:

• Brush Tip Profile – Medium Profile
• Roundness – 83%
• Bristle Length – 2.50
• Profile Length – 100%
• Bristle Rigidity – 250%
• Fanning – 10%
• Friction – 35%
• Height – 25%

The decreased Roundness makes the brush slightly elliptical. The Bristle Length and Profile Length work with the Tip Profile to add the tapered ends to the stroke, when the stylus is held at a tilt

	The RealBristle section of Brush Controls shows the settings for the Wow Gouache brush. Note the decreased Bristle rigidity, which helps to build softer bristles.
	The settings in the Size section of Brush Controls, with the Feature slider set to 2.7 and the Feature Expression pop-up menu set to Pressure. The decreased Feature setting builds a brush with more bristles, but can slow down performance, so I increased the Boost setting in the General section of Brush Controls.
	Settings in the General section of Brush Controls, with the increased Boost.

Now make a brush stroke with your new Wow! Gouache brush, and notice the realistic bristle marks in the paint. I used a gentle tilt on the stylus, and rotated the pen slightly to finish the stroke. Dramatically tilting the stylus will paint a more tapered end on the stroke.

Making a stroke with the new Wow! Real Gouache brush.

Saving the new brush

To save your new brush variant, click the menu arrow on the Brush Selector bar, and choose Save Variant from the menu. When the Save Variant dialog box appears, type a name for your new variant. (I named mine Wow! Real Gouache.) Your new variant will appear in the Gouache brush category. To return the original Fine Round Gouache 30 variant of the Gouache brush category to its default non-RealBristle settings, choose Fine Round Gouache 30 in the variant list. Then click the menu arrow on the Brush Selector bar, and choose Restore Default Variant.

Good work! You have created a new, custom Gouache brush with realistic RealBristle settings to use on your paintings.

Happy painting!

An award-winning artist and author, Cher Threinen-Pendarvis has always worked with traditional art tools. A pioneer in digital art, Cher has created illustrations with the Macintosh® computer for two decades. She has been widely recognized for her mastery of Corel® Painter™, Adobe® Photoshop®, and the Wacom® pressure-sensitive tablet, and she has used these electronic tools since they were ?rst released. Exercising her passion for the artist tools in Corel Painter, Cher has worked as a consultant and demo-artist for the Corel Painter developers. Her artwork has been exhibited worldwide, and her articles and art have been published in many books and periodicals. Cher holds a BFA with Highest Honors and Distinction in Art with a specialization in painting and printmaking, and she is a member of the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild. She has taught Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop workshops around the world and is the principal of the consulting firm Cher Threinen Design.

Cher is the author of The Photoshop and Painter Artist Tablet Book: Creative Techniques in Digital Painting and all eight editions of The Painter Wow! Book. The Painter X Wow! Book is the latest edition of this highly praised volume of techniques and inspiration.

To learn more about Cher, visit her web site at www.pendarvis-studios.com.