8 Of The Coolest Brushes For The Gimp

Like almost any piece of software with rudimentary drawing capability, Gimp includes simple brushes like squares, circles, and fuzzy circles. While they get you by for many basic needs, there’s a lot more you can do. Everything from flowers and vines to flames and bubbles can be created by brushes, and today we’re going to show you some of the coolest ones out there.

Installing a new Brush

All the following brushes will include links for download. Where you place them depends on your OS, but some are as follows:

• Windows 7: C:\Users\(username)\.gimp-(version)\brushes
• Windows XP: C:\Document and Settings\(username)\.gimp-(version)\brushes
• Linux: /home/(username)/.gimp-(version)/brushes
• Mac OSX: /Users/(username)/.gimp-(version)/brushes/

If the brush came in a ZIP file, you’ll need to extract it and place the brush folder in the appropriate location as shown above.

1. Vector Foliage

This lovely brush pack includes several plant-themed brushes capable of scaling to higher resolutions. Vines, flowers, trees, branches and more are included in silhouette style.

2. Create-a-Star Kit

This brush does exactly what the name implies, it lets you create a star by combining different “parts”. In the screenshot below you can see an example of possible ways you could piece together your ideal star.

Some of the brushes have their own color specifications and are not affected by Gimp’s active color choice.

3. Gears Vector Brushes

This pack contains multiple gear types that can scale to very high resolutions. Unlike the star creator, your choice of color is reflected on the gears drawn by the brush.

4. KA05′s Splatterbrush

Sometimes you just need to fling some goop on the wall, and for that, you’ve got the splatter brush. There are many such brushes out there, but this one is quite simple and versatile.

5. Hawksmont Moon Brushes

We’ve demonstrated before the amount of work that can go into creating a nice looking planet in Gimp. This handy little brush can greatly simplify that by giving you a quick and easy moon that can scale to quite large resolutions.

6. Rise Brushes

Anyone who has tried to make abstract wallpaper will likely find this brush quite useful. It’s a small collection of simple abstract sweeps, and could easily add something interesting to your next home-made wallpaper.

7. Hawksmont Snowflakes

In this pack you’ll get several beautiful and highly scalable snowflakes. each with its own unique style and the proper number of sides (anyone drawing an 8-sided snowflake had better go outside in the winter more often).

8. Dimension Brushes

Somewhat similar to the Rise brushes above, the Dimension brushes are meant for abstract designs. These brushes come in many shapes and sizes, some more suitable for high-res graphics than others.

Obviously there are many many more brushes out there that will work with The Gimp.