The right brushes can completely change the look and feel of your digital art in Krita. Whether you want smooth inking, realistic watercolor effects, or unique textures, the right brush can make your work easier and more enjoyable. Krita offers many free brushes, but finding the best ones can be time-consuming. That’s why this article brings you the 17 best Krita brushes to download.
You’ll find a mix of inking, painting, and special effects brushes to help improve your creative workflow. Plus, you’ll find easy installation tips and ways to customize these brushes to suit your style. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced artist, this guide will help you get the most out of Krita’s brush engine.
What Makes Krita Brushes Special?
Krita’s brush engine is one of its strongest features. It gives you a wide range of brushes that can create different textures and effects, making it perfect for all kinds of digital art. Whether you’re sketching, painting, or inking, Krita has brushes that feel natural and responsive.
You can find brushes that mimic real pencils, smooth digital pens, or even thick oil paints. The best part? You can customize each brush to match your style, adjusting things like pressure, opacity, and texture. With Krita’s brushes, every stroke feels precise and expressive, helping you bring your ideas to life more easily.
17 Best Krita Brushes You Can’t Miss
1. Krita Brushes 2023 Bundle by David Revoy
The Krita Brushes 2023-01 Bundle by David Revoy is a curated set of 38 brushes designed to improve your digital painting and sketching experience in Krita. As the original designer of Krita’s default brushes, Revoy has refined this collection to provide improved texture and performance for both beginners and professional artists.
Key Features:
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Comprehensive Selection: This bundle streamlines your workflow by providing a compact set of essential brushes, organized into groups like “details,” “glazing,” and “texturing” for quick access.
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Optimized Performance: Each brush is fine-tuned for responsiveness, ensuring a natural feel that adapts to various pressure sensitivities, compatible with devices like the Intuos Pro Large and XP-Pen Artist Pro 24.
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User-Friendly Organization: The brushes are designed to fit into a two-column layout on a quadHD monitor, allowing for efficient navigation and selection during your creative process.
2. Charcoal Pencils by David Revoy
Key Features:
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Realistic Charcoal Effect: These brushes are designed to mimic the natural grainy texture of real charcoal on paper, perfect for expressive and dynamic sketches.
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Three Custom Presets: The set includes three different charcoal brushes, each offering varying levels of softness and texture to suit different sketching styles.
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Subtle Paper Texture Simulation: The brushes include a built-in grainy effect, making digital drawings feel more traditional and organic.
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Optimized for Krita: Created by a professional Krita artist, these brushes work seamlessly with Krita’s brush engine, offering smooth pressure sensitivity and realistic blending.
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Free and Open-Source: Available under a CC-0/Public Domain license, allowing you to use, modify, and share them freely in personal or commercial projects.
David Revoy’s Official Website
3. Rakurri Brush Set V2 by Rakurri
The Rakurri Brush Set V2.1 is a comprehensive collection of 215 free brushes designed specifically for Krita 5 and newer versions. Tailored for stylized artwork, this set offers a wide array of tools to enhance your digital creations.
Key Features:
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Extensive Variety: The set includes blending brushes, drawing and painting brushes, pixel art brushes, foliage brushes, fur and hair brushes, spray brushes, filter brushes, “liquify” brushes, stars and glitter brushes, color-focused brushes, guide brushes, and more.
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Tilt Support: Many brushes are optimized for tablets with tilt functionality, allowing for dynamic strokes that vary with the angle of your stylus. Brushes supporting this feature are marked with a rotate icon.
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Regular Updates: The brush set is actively maintained, with version 2.1 introducing 86 new brushes across four categories, bringing the total to 215 brushes.
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User-Friendly Installation: The bundle is easy to import into Krita, ensuring a seamless integration into your workflow.
You can download the Rakurri Brush Set V2.1 from the following sources:
4. Memileo Brushes by Emilm
The Memileo Brushes by Emilm offer a diverse collection of tools designed to infuse your digital artwork with unique textures and effects. This set includes grungy, smeary, spongy, and pencil-like brushes, each crafted to add distinct character to your creations.
Key Features:
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Grungy and Smeary Brushes: These brushes introduce rough, textured strokes, perfect for adding depth and a raw aesthetic to your pieces.
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Spongy Brushes: Designed to emulate the porous texture of a sponge, these brushes are ideal for creating organic patterns and backgrounds.
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Pencil-Like Brushes: Offering a natural, hand-drawn feel, these brushes are excellent for sketching and line work, closely mimicking traditional pencil strokes.
For artists using tablets with tilt functionality, the sponge and pencil brushes respond dynamically to the angle of your stylus, providing a more intuitive and expressive drawing experience.
5. Lilly Mist’s Special Brushes by Lilly Mist
The Lilly Mist’s Special Brushes collection is a versatile set of Krita brushes designed to enhance your digital artwork with decorative elements and unique effects. Created by artist Lilly Mist, this pack aims to simplify the process of adding intricate details to your pieces, making it easier to achieve stunning results.
Key Features:
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Diverse Decorative Elements: The collection includes brushes that create patterns such as chains, ropes, leaves, grass, lights, glows, magical effects, borders, and other decorative designs.
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User-Friendly Design: Tailored for both beginners and experienced artists, these brushes are crafted to be intuitive, allowing for the quick addition of complex patterns without the need for meticulous manual drawing.
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Free and Accessible: The brush pack is available for free download, providing an accessible resource for artists looking to expand their toolkit without financial investment.
You can download the Lilly Mist’s Special Brushes collection from the following sources:
6. TheFlow’s Mixer/Concept Brushes
The TheFlow’s Mixer/Concept Brushes is a thoughtfully crafted collection designed to enhance your concept art and digital painting projects in Krita. This set offers a variety of brushes that facilitate smooth color transitions and dynamic abstract strokes, providing artists with versatile tools to bring their creative visions to life.
Key Features:
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Mixer Brushes: These brushes are tailored for seamless blending, allowing you to mix colors directly on the canvas to achieve rich gradients and depth in your artwork.
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Smudge Brushes: Ideal for creating soft transitions and atmospheric effects, the smudge brushes help in achieving a painterly quality by subtly merging colors and edges.
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Abstract Brushes: Designed to inspire creativity, these brushes introduce unique textures and patterns, enabling the creation of compelling abstract elements within your compositions.
Incorporating TheFlow’s Mixer/Concept Brushes into your workflow can significantly enhance the fluidity and expressiveness of your digital paintings, making them a valuable addition to any artist’s toolkit.
7. Ink Pen (CSP-like) by SchrodingerCat
The Ink Pen (CSP-like) by SchrodingerCat is a custom brush preset for Krita, inspired by the G-Pen from Clip Studio Paint. This brush is designed to offer artists a responsive and versatile tool for creating crisp, clean lines, making it particularly well-suited for comic art and detailed inking projects.
Key Features:
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Responsive Line Variation: The brush dynamically adjusts to your drawing speed and pressure, allowing for expressive line weight variations that enhance the depth and dynamism of your artwork.
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Smooth and Crisp Strokes: Engineered to produce sharp and clean lines, this brush minimizes jitter, ensuring that each stroke is precise—ideal for outlining and detailing in comic illustrations.
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Customizable Settings: While the default settings are optimized for general use, artists can fine-tune parameters such as opacity, size, and pressure sensitivity to align with their personal drawing preferences.
Incorporating this brush into your Krita toolkit can significantly enhance your inking workflow, providing a familiar feel for artists accustomed to Clip Studio Paint’s G-Pen, while leveraging Krita’s robust brush engine.
8. Updated Free Pixelated/Glitch Brush Pack by ENJERUNE
The Updated Free Pixelated/Glitch Brush Pack by ENJERUNE is a specialized collection designed to infuse your digital artwork with unique pixelated and glitch effects. This pack offers a variety of high- and low-resolution brushes, enabling artists to create distinctive digital textures and experimental visuals.
Key Features:
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High-Resolution Brushes: Crafted to produce detailed glitch effects, these brushes are ideal for adding intricate digital distortions to your artwork.
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Low-Resolution Brushes: These brushes emulate a pixelated aesthetic, perfect for achieving a retro or lo-fi appearance in your designs.
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Versatile Application: Whether you’re working on abstract pieces, concept art, or enhancing photographs, this brush pack provides tools to explore creative glitch art techniques.
You can download the Updated Free Pixelated/Glitch Brush Pack directly from the Krita Artists forum.
9. Hard-Edge Charcoal Brushes With Texture by Postmax
The Hard-Edge Charcoal Brushes with Texture by Postmax are a set of custom brushes for Krita, designed to deliver bold, hard-edged strokes with an organic feel. These brushes are particularly well-suited for block shading and creating dramatic sketches, offering artists a versatile toolset to enhance their digital artwork.
Key Features:
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Bold, Hard-Edged Strokes: The brushes are crafted to produce strong, defined lines, making them ideal for block shading and adding emphasis to your sketches.
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Organic Texture: Each brush incorporates a natural, textured feel that becomes more pronounced with lighter pressure, adding depth and character to your artwork.
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Versatile Applications: The set includes a liner brush suitable for drawing shapes or freehand sketching, as well as block and round brushes designed for covering large areas and creating rough textures.
Incorporating these brushes into your Krita toolkit can enhance your ability to create dynamic and textured digital art, providing a unique blend of precision and organic feel.
10. Soak Ink Bundle by Tachiko
The Soak Ink Bundle by Tachiko is a specialized set of brushes designed to replicate realistic hair textures and ink spread effects, making it particularly useful for portrait and character art in Krita.
Key Features:
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Realistic Hair Rendering: The brushes are tailored to simulate the flow and texture of natural hair, allowing artists to create lifelike strands with ease.
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Dynamic Ink Spread Effects: These brushes mimic the behavior of ink spreading on paper, adding depth and authenticity to your artwork.
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Advanced Techniques: Utilizing these brushes involves specific methods, such as duplicating hair layers and applying the soak ink brushes to achieve the desired effect. For a comprehensive understanding, refer to Tachiko’s detailed explanation on the Krita Artists forum.
This Soak Ink Bundle can enhance the realism and depth of your portrait and character illustrations, providing tools specifically crafted for detailed hair and ink effects.
11. Leafy Watercolor Brush by CrazyCatBird
The Leafy Watercolor Brush by CrazyCatBird is a custom brush designed for Krita, aimed at artists seeking to create delicate foliage with a natural watercolor effect. This brush combines subtle lines and organic textures, making it an excellent tool for painting leaves and enhancing your digital artwork with a traditional watercolor feel.
Key Features:
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Natural Foliage Rendering: Specifically tailored to depict leafy elements, this brush allows for the creation of realistic plant life with ease.
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Watercolor Effect: Emulates the fluidity and translucency of traditional watercolor paints, adding depth and authenticity to your pieces.
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Versatility: While ideal for foliage, the brush’s subtle texture and line quality make it suitable for various other elements in your compositions.
You can download the Leafy Watercolor Brush and find more information on the Krita Artists forum:
Leafy Watercolor Brush brush can enhance the realism and aesthetic appeal of your digital paintings, especially when aiming for a watercolor style.
12. Set of Watercolor Brushes by Pesi
The Watercolor Brushes for Krita by Pesi is a comprehensive collection designed to emulate the fluidity and texture of traditional watercolor painting within the digital environment of Krita. This set is ideal for artists seeking to achieve both soft washes and dynamic strokes in their artwork.
Key Features:
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Diverse Brush Selection: The pack includes 16 meticulously crafted brushes, each tailored to replicate various watercolor techniques, from gentle gradients to bold, expressive lines.
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Optimized Blending Modes: To enhance the watercolor effect, the brushes utilize the “Geometric Mean” blending mode by default, offering a natural color mixing experience. Artists desiring more opaque results can switch to the “Normal” blending mode as needed.
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Compatibility: Designed for Krita versions 4.0 and up, ensuring a seamless integration into your existing workflow.
Incorporating Pesi’s Watercolor Brushes into your digital toolkit can significantly enhance the authenticity and expressiveness of your watercolor-style paintings in Krita.
13. Smudge Brushes by Jshinncreative
The Smudge Brushes by Jshinncreative are a collection of custom brushes designed for Krita users, aimed at facilitating seamless blending of colors and textures in digital artwork. These brushes are particularly useful for artists seeking to create smooth gradients and realistic transitions in their paintings.
Key Features:
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Versatile Blending Tools: The set includes various smudge brushes that enable artists to blend colors and textures effectively, enhancing the depth and realism of their digital art.
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Enhanced Texturing: Beyond blending, these brushes can be used to apply intricate textures, adding complexity and detail to your artwork.
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Krita Compatibility: Specifically designed for use with Krita, these brushes integrate seamlessly into the software, providing a smooth and efficient user experience.
You can download the Smudge Brushes by Jshinncreative from their DeviantArt page:
These brushes can significantly enhance your ability to create lifelike textures and transitions, making them a valuable resource for any digital artist.
14. Material and Veg Brushes by Jshinncreative
The Material and Veg Brushes by Jshinncreative is a collection of custom brushes designed for Krita, aimed at enhancing the rendering of natural elements such as vegetation and various materials. These brushes are handy for artists focusing on environmental art, providing tools to depict foliage, textures, and intricate material details with ease.
Key Features:
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Versatile Brush Selection: The set includes a variety of brushes tailored for different textures, enabling artists to create detailed and dynamic natural scenes.
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Optimized for Natural Elements: Specifically crafted to replicate the appearance of vegetation and materials, these brushes assist in producing realistic and organic artwork.
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Krita Compatibility: Designed exclusively for use with Krita, ensuring seamless integration and performance within the software.
These brushes can enhance your ability to render natural elements, making them a valuable resource for artists specializing in environmental and material-focused artwork.
15. Krita Brushes V4 by Deevad
The Krita Brushes V4 by David Revoy is a minimalist yet powerful brush kit designed to enhance daily digital art creation. This collection offers a refined selection of brushes tailored to accommodate various art styles, ensuring versatility and efficiency for artists.
Key Features:
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Streamlined Selection: The kit comprises a 5×5 grid of essential brushes, thoughtfully curated to cover a wide range of artistic needs without overwhelming the user.
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Personalized Design: Crafted based on David Revoy’s daily painting practices, these brushes reflect a personal touch, aligning with techniques that promote productivity and creative expression.
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Compatibility: Originally developed for Krita 2.8, this brush kit is compatible with subsequent versions, ensuring broad accessibility for users.
Please note that this resource is now outdated and unmaintained; it may not function correctly with recent versions of Krita. For the most up-to-date brushes, consider exploring the ‘extras’ category on David Revoy’s website.
Incorporating this brush kit into your workflow can enhance your digital art experience, providing a selection of tools designed for versatility and ease of use.
16. Free Krita Brushes for Game Artists by GDQuest
The Free Krita Brushes for Game Artists by GDQuest is a curated collection designed to enhance the workflow of game designers and digital artists. This pack offers a variety of brushes tailored to meet the specific needs of game art creation, providing tools that range from texturing to environmental detailing.
Key Features:
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Chalk Brushes: Ideal for creating rough textures and adding a hand-drawn feel to your artwork.
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Rock Texture Brushes: Designed to simulate the intricate details of rocky surfaces, these brushes help in painting realistic stone textures efficiently.
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Vegetation Brushes: These include presets for painting foliage, such as grass and flowers, enabling artists to populate scenes with lush greenery quickly.
17. Brush Pack Version 2 for Krita by Raghukamath
The Brush Pack Version 2 for Krita by Raghukamath is a versatile collection of brushes designed to enhance your digital painting experience. This bundle offers a range of tools, from sponge and eraser brushes to fine tips, catering to various artistic needs and styles.
Key Features:
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Diverse Brush Selection: The pack includes various brushes that I personally use, providing artists with a comprehensive toolkit for different painting techniques.
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User-Friendly Design: Each brush is crafted to be intuitive, allowing both beginners and experienced artists to integrate them seamlessly into their workflow.
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Free and Open-Source: Released under the CC0 license, these brushes are free to download, use, and modify, offering flexibility for personal and commercial projects.
You can download the Brush Pack Version 2 for Krita from the following sources:
Tips to Customize and Optimize Your Brush Settings
Krita gives you full control over how your brushes behave, allowing you to fine-tune them for a more personalized drawing experience. Whether you’re adjusting sensitivity for smoother strokes or optimizing performance on older devices, here’s how you can get the most out of your brushes.
Customization
Your brushes don’t have to work the same way for every artist. Krita lets you tweak multiple settings to match your style and workflow.
- Pressure Sensitivity: Adjust how much pressure affects opacity and size. If your strokes feel too light or too heavy, tweak the “Size” and “Opacity” curves under the brush editor.
- Spacing: Lower spacing values create smoother lines, while higher values give a more textured, painterly effect.
- Opacity & Flow: Control how much paint is applied with each stroke. Lower opacity creates subtle blending, while higher opacity makes solid marks.
- Sensor Curves: Krita lets you map different pen inputs (tilt, speed, etc.) to brush size, opacity, and other settings, allowing for a more dynamic feel in your strokes.
Optimization
If you’re working on an older or low-spec computer, some brushes may lag. Here’s how to keep performance smooth:
- Use Lower Spacing and Fewer Effects: Brushes with complex textures and high spacing values can slow things down. Try simplifying the settings for a better response time.
- Disable Anti-Aliasing (If Needed): This reduces processing load, making strokes feel more responsive, especially for pixel art and hard-edged brushes.
- Reduce Brush Tip Size: Larger brushes demand more processing power. If Krita starts lagging, try using a smaller brush size.
- Avoid Overusing Smudge and Mixer Brushes: These brushes require more calculations per stroke. Use them sparingly or adjust the “Smudge Length” to a lower value.
By customizing and optimizing your brushes, you can create a more comfortable and efficient digital painting experience in Krita, no matter your device.
Conclusion
With the right brush set, your digital artwork can reach new heights. The 17 best Krita brushes listed above cater to a wide range of styles and needs – whether you’re into crisp inking, expressive sketching, soft watercolor, or rich textures. Whatever your artistic style, these brushes can help you work faster and bring more depth to your creations.
If you found this guide helpful, share your favorite Krita brushes in the comments! Don’t forget to subscribe for more tutorials, brush recommendations, and digital art tips. Keep experimenting, customizing, and refining your brushes to create artwork that stands out. Happy painting!
