I want to document my complete process for creating a Procreate brush from scratch, because default brushes are a starting point and building your own is where the real character of a painting workflow lives.

I start with the Shape source: a custom texture I paint in Procreate or scan from traditional media. The shape is the individual stamp the brush makes. For an oil-style brush I use a rough, irregular blot shape. For a technical brush I use a precise circle or square.

The Grain source: the texture applied over the shape. I use paper scans for painterly brushes and noise patterns for textured effects.

Dynamics: I set pressure to control size (10–100% range), opacity, and flow independently. For a painterly brush, pressure controls all three but with different curves — opacity responds to light pressure sensitively, size responds to heavy pressure.

Stabilization: I use StreamLine at 20% for freehand sketching and 50% for final linework. Zero for texture brushes where the natural variation of the stroke is the point.