Pro tip: I finally figured out why my digital paintings looked flat after three years of trying.

Wade Schmidt · 2026-03-28T00:00:30.14546+00:00

Last month, I was redoing a character portrait and started using a textured brush for the base colors instead of a flat one. That single change added so much more depth from the very first layer. Has anyone else found a simple brush tweak that fixed a long-running problem?

nathan_thompson624mo ago

The 100% hardness thing hit close to home. I did the exact opposite for two years on my portraits - used a soft airbrush for everything and wondered why my faces looked like blobs. Hardness at 60% was the sweet spot for me, but it took a bunch of trial and error to find it. What specific texture brush did you use for the base colors? I keep jumping between different ones and can't seem to settle on anything.

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umasullivan7mo ago

That texture brush trick saved my landscapes too!

2

burns.phoenix7mo ago

I spent two whole years trying to make my clouds look fluffy before I realized I had the brush hardness set to 100%. Felt like a genius and an idiot at the same time.

1