Free Stuff for Digital Artists
There are tonnes of great resources on the internet for us digital artists. From Photoshop brushes and fonts, to vector art and high resolution textures- you can get just about anything for free!
If you're like me, a poor artist, you can't pay for the aforementioned resources. So here is a list of sites I use regularly:
brusheezy.com
A really great site with hundreds of free brushes for Photoshop. The brushes vary in quality and some are designed a little too small for my taste (a brush that is designed to be less than 100pixels square??!). but for the most part, there are some really amazing brushes here. You probably won't find a single piece created by me that hasn't used a brush from brusheezy. Check out their patterns, vector and flash sections too!
1001freefonts.com
Maybe this is snobby, but I don't believe you should ever use a font that came with your computer on your projects, professional or not. Imagine the paint store only had 100 colours of paint- you'd see seafoam green everywhere! Well, it's the same thing with fonts. This is where 1001freefonts comes in- tonnes of free amazing fonts.
One side note: my most-hated font of all time is Papyrus. I see it everywhere, on signs, logos, commercials... everytime I see it, I think "This was not designed by a professional..." Comic Sans is another widely used font that is a piece of crap. Here is a site dedicated to eradicating the world of Comic Sans.
kuler.adobe.com
If you've never heard of kuler, you are missing out! This is a great flash site designed by Adobe to help you pick colours based on common colour relationships (analogous, complimentary, etc). You can make your own swatches (click 'create') or view other peoples creations. If you have Adobe air, you can also get the kuler desktop so you can import colours swatches right into other Adobe products. I use this site all the time- just looking at a set of colours can inpsire my newest creations. Check out this amazing set.
cgtextures.com
This is a huge database of high resolution images, perfect for use in 3d texturing. These images are also great references for your digital paintings. You can download up to 15mb in any 24 hour period and you can use these images completely royalty-free even for your professional pieces. Great site!
creativecow.net
Need some tutorials? Need to learn After Effects or Premiere really quick? Creativecow is the answer. They have litterally hundreds of great video tutorials on many software titles. It's mainly geared towards compositing and video editing, even the Photoshop tutorial sections is mainly focused on video. But I'm sure most 3d artists will agree, you need to know how to composite!
k10k.net
1000 pixel-style patterns. While I don't usually use pixel style images, you might have a use here and there...
turbosquid.com
The place to get the 3d models you don't want to make yourself. This site has lots of free 3d models that vary greatly in quality. But it's worth a try if it will save you some time. They also have textures, scripts and more. By the way, if you are going to buy models, I would make sure you can view a wireframe first. Many modelers are self taught and the quality of their geometry can suffer from it.
yourfonts.com
I haven't used this site myself, but it looks super cool. You can use it to create fonts from your own handwriting or drawings. I love this idea for comic writers who want to switch to digital and keep their own style. Or what about creating a font from your childs' writing? So many possibilities.
Update: I ended up trying this site today. It works like a dream! Definitely check it out.
visualblast.com
I hope you use Actions when you work in Photoshop. Not only can it improve your productivity, it can increase your creativty with lots of neat special effects. When you use a pre-made Action, make sure you check out the 'guts' of it. Learn what it does and how and you will greatly increase your understanding of Photoshop. Here is a cool effect created using one the Actions on this site:
That's all for now. I'll keep you posted with other sites I'm using here and there. I hope you found this list helpful. Always remember to check out the guidelines before using any free resources- we're all friends here and we don't want to steal!
If you're like me, a poor artist, you can't pay for the aforementioned resources. So here is a list of sites I use regularly:
brusheezy.com
A really great site with hundreds of free brushes for Photoshop. The brushes vary in quality and some are designed a little too small for my taste (a brush that is designed to be less than 100pixels square??!). but for the most part, there are some really amazing brushes here. You probably won't find a single piece created by me that hasn't used a brush from brusheezy. Check out their patterns, vector and flash sections too!
1001freefonts.com
Maybe this is snobby, but I don't believe you should ever use a font that came with your computer on your projects, professional or not. Imagine the paint store only had 100 colours of paint- you'd see seafoam green everywhere! Well, it's the same thing with fonts. This is where 1001freefonts comes in- tonnes of free amazing fonts.
One side note: my most-hated font of all time is Papyrus. I see it everywhere, on signs, logos, commercials... everytime I see it, I think "This was not designed by a professional..." Comic Sans is another widely used font that is a piece of crap. Here is a site dedicated to eradicating the world of Comic Sans.
kuler.adobe.com
If you've never heard of kuler, you are missing out! This is a great flash site designed by Adobe to help you pick colours based on common colour relationships (analogous, complimentary, etc). You can make your own swatches (click 'create') or view other peoples creations. If you have Adobe air, you can also get the kuler desktop so you can import colours swatches right into other Adobe products. I use this site all the time- just looking at a set of colours can inpsire my newest creations. Check out this amazing set.
cgtextures.com
This is a huge database of high resolution images, perfect for use in 3d texturing. These images are also great references for your digital paintings. You can download up to 15mb in any 24 hour period and you can use these images completely royalty-free even for your professional pieces. Great site!
creativecow.net
Need some tutorials? Need to learn After Effects or Premiere really quick? Creativecow is the answer. They have litterally hundreds of great video tutorials on many software titles. It's mainly geared towards compositing and video editing, even the Photoshop tutorial sections is mainly focused on video. But I'm sure most 3d artists will agree, you need to know how to composite!
k10k.net
1000 pixel-style patterns. While I don't usually use pixel style images, you might have a use here and there...
turbosquid.com
The place to get the 3d models you don't want to make yourself. This site has lots of free 3d models that vary greatly in quality. But it's worth a try if it will save you some time. They also have textures, scripts and more. By the way, if you are going to buy models, I would make sure you can view a wireframe first. Many modelers are self taught and the quality of their geometry can suffer from it.
yourfonts.com
I haven't used this site myself, but it looks super cool. You can use it to create fonts from your own handwriting or drawings. I love this idea for comic writers who want to switch to digital and keep their own style. Or what about creating a font from your childs' writing? So many possibilities.
Update: I ended up trying this site today. It works like a dream! Definitely check it out.
visualblast.com
I hope you use Actions when you work in Photoshop. Not only can it improve your productivity, it can increase your creativty with lots of neat special effects. When you use a pre-made Action, make sure you check out the 'guts' of it. Learn what it does and how and you will greatly increase your understanding of Photoshop. Here is a cool effect created using one the Actions on this site:
That's all for now. I'll keep you posted with other sites I'm using here and there. I hope you found this list helpful. Always remember to check out the guidelines before using any free resources- we're all friends here and we don't want to steal!
posted by Katie Scott at
3:14 PM
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