Mobile painting app Procreate has quickly become the go-to digital sketchpad for both professional and hobbyist designers and artists. That's why we've curated this selection of the best free Procreate brushes – as well as the best premium options – for you to bookmark.
Winner of the 2013 Apple design award, and ImagineFX Editors Choice, Procreate is more than just a quick drawing tool. The iPad app transforms your iPad into a drawing tablet capable of the level of artwork previously only possible on a desktop or expensive graphics tablet dedicated to digital design.
There's an unlimited library of brushes available, meaning you can have every style and stroke available at your fingertips. So which ones do you want? Read on for our pick of the best Procreate brushes to download for your collection.
01. 68 Gouache Shader Brushes for Procreate
Price: £12
You get a whopping 68 gouache Procreate brushes in this mega pack from creative resources site RetroSupply, giving you rich gouache effects in Procreate in minutes (rather than the hours it would have taken to find the right textures and mask them in). They work brilliantly with an iPad and Apple Pencil, and are particularly well-suited for poster designs, books and vector illustrations – among myriad other uses.
02. Neon Brush Kit
Price: $6
Milo Garret's brush kit is ideal for creating realistic handwritten neon signage, and comes with everything you need for getting that glorious glowy look. It comes with 12 neon writing brushes, plus an effects brush and three bonus light pen brushes for livening up photographs, as well as a set of 19 ready-to-use background images.
03. Texturrific Bundle
Price: $18
Featuring 30 shaders, 14 liners and 14 pastels, Lisa Bardot's Texturrific bundle is absolutely packed with deliciously textured brushes that'll help you create all manner of effects and art styles without ever having to go near a pen and paper. All 58 brushes are fully pressure sensitive and made with a variety of high resolution, handmade texture sources.
04. Procreate lettering and paint brushes
Price: $12
Petra Makes (StudioBurg)’s collection is an essential package, offering a selection of brushes that should suit most basic illustration and graphic design needs. She covers various pen and pencil styles as well as paint brushes, making it easy to pick your desired signature.
05. Flat Brushes
Price: $5
We all have that favourite brush used time and time again for lettering, and this particular collection is directly inspired by artist Ian Bernard’s old faithful. The brushes are varied from solid to textured to give you plenty of variation for your own work.
06. Comic Ink Brush Set
Price: Pay what you want
Perfect for those budding comic illustrators out there. Georg’s tribute to American comic book illustrator Will Elder, who helped launch MAD comics back in the '50s includes both inking brushes and SFX additions. This is the perfect addition to any illustrator's Procreate repertoire.
07. Pencil and Charcoal Procreate Brushes
Price: $6
Swiss designer Kim (aka MiksKS) has a whole host of brilliant brushes to offer. Her pencil and charcoal collection make it easy to sketch on the go, with clients or just to capture a moment in a coffee shop without wasting paper.
08. Dearest Dotty
Price: Free
Designer Missy Meyer has a plethora of free Procreate brushes available on her website that are all brilliant for creating graphic script. The great thing about Dearest Dotty is its versatility and the unique retro vibe it helps give off when used for hand lettering.
09. Flora: Vegetation brushes
Price: Pay what you want
Matthew Baldwin’s vegetation brush set makes light work for concept artists, enabling them to set the scene instantly and master that painterly effect digitally. Baldwin has captured every style of stroke seen by the concept masters.
10. Gouache brushes
Price: $12
Bardot has a few brush packs available on her site (see #2) but her gouache one is particularly unique. Emulate the classic Disney illustrative magic of Mary Blair digitally, and add depth and personality to your graphic design caricatures.
11. Brushes and foil textures
Price: $14
Designing event flyers? Wedding invites? Summit Avenue has got you covered with a set of 12 confetti brushes and 24 foil and glitter textures to add a touch of sparkle to your designs.
12. Procreate Paint Box
Price: $12
Ben Lew’s paint box has a brilliant selection of brushes, from wet pencil to bristly and his go-to watercolour brush, 'gwosh'. Lew has now updated the set with four pastel brushes from his 'Pastellesque' set.
13. Nitty Gritty
Price: $3
Jamie Bartlett’s Nitty Gritty texture brushes are brilliant for adding fine grit texture and an instant ageing effect to your designs.
14. Bistro Marker
Price: Free
As you can see from her Instagram account, Leftyscript’s (aka Megan AF) brushes can create some truly beautiful hand lettering designs that speak for themselves – no further illustration needed! Her bistro marker is a brilliant freebie pen that allows you to capture a hand-written signage type-face perfectly.
15. Vintage Engraving
Price: $6
Another MilksKS brush set, this one allows you to capture the look of a black and white engraving, adding that extra special touch to your illustrations or design project. Combine a few for a classic crosshatching effect, and pick from a worn-out or clean cut style.
16. Shape and Ornament Brushes
Price: $19.99
Calligraphy artist Nicole Mauloni’s Hand Drawn Ornaments Procreate Brush Kit includes over 100 brushes to adorn digital calligraphy. They're perfect for creating a design stamp with flourishes, shapes and motifs.
17. iPad Lettering Set
Price: Free
Get back to basics with this freebie set of three essential brushes: original calligraphy, rough edge calligraphy and round edge calligraphy. Sometimes simplicity is beautiful.
Next page: 16 more awesome Procreate brushes and brush packs
