I compared free vs paid brush packs for my digital paintings and the cheap ones won

Last month I was getting frustrated with my line work in Procreate. I kept seeing these amazing textures from artists who swore by expensive brush bundles. So I dropped $45 on a popular pack from an online shop. The brushes were fine but nothing special. Then I remembered a free brush set I downloaded from DeviantArt back in 2022. Those old brushes actually had way more variety and felt more natural to use. The paid ones looked polished but stiff while the free ones had this rough edge that made my sketches pop. Now I'm wondering if I just got unlucky or if cheaper brushes are actually better for certain styles. Has anyone else found that free or budget packs beat the premium ones for your work?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaretramirez1mo ago

Saw a video where someone tested 10 free brush packs against 10 paid ones and the free ones won 7 out of 10. I think @samk77 has a point about filler, that seems to be the main problem with the expensive ones.

murray.cora1mo ago

That $45 pack you mentioned reminds me of the "Oil Painter Pro" set I bought that turned out to be just tweaked versions of free Kyle T. Webster brushes. The free ones I got from a guy named Richard on Gumroad actually have way more grit and react better to pressure changes. Did you notice if the paid pack had a bunch of duplicate brushes that just changed the opacity or size settings? Because that was my main gripe, they felt like filler instead of real tools.

samk771mo ago

Wait, you actually remember paying $45 for that? Mine was $40 and I'm still mad about it. The duplicates were insane, like 15 variations of the same smudge brush with just the spacing or angle jitter changed. The whole pack had maybe 20 real brushes and the rest was just filler. I ended up deleting half of them because they clogged up my brush list.