Summary of "I Make a Living From Illustration (But Not How You'd Expect)"
Overview
A full‑time illustrator describes how they replaced reliance on client work and physical prints with a stable income stream by creating and selling custom Procreate brush packs. Rather than mass‑producing generic brushes, they focus on a small number of highly personal, thoroughly tested brushes they actually use in their own work. The video demonstrates recreating a favorite pencil brush, revealing the settings and creative choices that make brushes feel “personal” and reliably usable. The creator stresses iterative testing, heavy curation, and exporting brush presets for sale.
Key artistic techniques and creative principles
- Make tools for yourself first: design brushes you will actually use. Personal, lived‑in brushes sell better.
- Start from real textures: scan paper or other surfaces (fabric, concrete, terrain) and use a small portion of the scan as the brush grain.
- Make textures seamless (auto‑repeat) and adjust contrast/invert to reveal the surface.
- Iterate and curate: create many variations, discard the ones that don’t feel right, and keep only a few polished brushes.
- Use stamps/shapes made from physical marks (acrylic stamps, scanned strokes) to add authenticity.
- Introduce controlled randomness: tweak spacing, jitter, rotation, scatter, count and randomness to get roughness or stamp effects rather than flat continuous strokes.
- Control grain so the texture reads at the intended brush sizes (scale, zoom, depth, brightness/contrast).
- Match rendering/blending mode to the medium you emulate (disable wet mix for dry tools like pencils; enable wet/edge modes for watercolors).
- Calibrate Apple Pencil pressure/opacity/flow so the brush responds naturally.
- Save sizes/presets, create reset points, and duplicate brushes before experimenting.
- Export brushes individually or as grouped folders for sharing or selling.
“Design brushes you will actually use.” The brushes you keep reaching for are the best candidates for sale.
Practical step‑by‑step workflow and settings highlights
Materials and tools
- iPad + Procreate
- Apple Pencil (adjustable pressure curve)
- Scanner (preferred) or camera for capturing textures
- Physical sketchbook/paper or textured surfaces to scan (example: Midori sketchbook)
Preparing texture
- Scan a small portion of the paper or textured surface.
- Increase contrast so the texture reads clearly; invert if helpful.
- Set Auto Repeat (seamless tiling) so the grain repeats without visible edges.
Shape and stamp
- Start from Procreate’s built‑in shapes or your own scanned stamps.
- Adjust shape rotation, scatter, count, randomize and flip to add variation and avoid mechanical repetition.
Stroke settings
- Spacing: add slight spacing (not zero) for a stamp‑like feel.
- Lateral jitter: small amounts to reduce polish and add character.
- Stabilization: use a small amount for smoother curves without over‑perfecting.
- Taper: keep taper subtle to maintain a natural pencil feel.
Grain/texture settings
- Scale/zoom the grain to fit the intended brush size.
- Depth: usually high so texture shows through the stroke.
- Brightness/contrast: tweak to refine how visible the grain is.
Rendering and dynamics
- Flow: set based on how much “ink” you want (often around the 80% range shown).
- Disable wet mix for pencils and other dry tools; enable wet or edge modes for watercolors.
- Disable color dynamics unless intentional hue/saturation variation is desired.
Apple Pencil and properties
- Adjust pressure curve, opacity/flow/bleed to match desired responsiveness.
- Set max/min brush size to the range the grain supports (avoid sizes where the texture breaks).
- Save favorite sizes as presets for quick access.
Saving, versioning and exporting
- Use Procreate’s brush reset/save point feature to create restore points.
- Duplicate brushes before major edits to preserve originals.
- Export single brushes or entire folders via Share when ready to distribute or sell.
Business and creative advice
- Small, high‑quality, personal brush packs sell better than large, generic packs.
- A product that reflects your personal mark attracts users who want that specific look.
- Test brushes in your own work; the ones you naturally reach for are most likely to succeed commercially.
- Use Procreate’s preview to craft clear, attractive thumbnails for brush listings.
- Expect to make and discard many brushes — successful brushes typically come from iteration and curation.
Examples and products mentioned
- A free pencil brush recreated in the video (available in the creator’s brush store).
- A marker brush pack modeled on Copic markers (recommended by the creator).
- Tools/platforms: Procreate, iPad, Apple Pencil, scanned Midori sketchbook paper.
Creators and contributors featured
- The video’s narrator/illustrator (unnamed in subtitles) — demonstrates the creation process and sells the brushes.
- Procreate team — mentioned in relation to app UI and preview changes.
Category
Art and Creativity
Share this summary
Is the summary off?
If you think the summary is inaccurate, you can reprocess it with the latest model.
Preparing reprocess...