General thoughts on custom zbrush brushes in the industry?

Katmog

I'm wondering what the general thoughts are regarding using custom brushes in zbrush, mainly ones someone else has made.

I know using photoshop custom brushes is generally looked down upon and considered as cheating by some people, so I was wondering if this is the same for zbrush brushes. Though I can definitely see where some people are coming from in regards to certain photoshop brushes, as painting an entire forest down with one click doesn't require much effort or talent.

Do you tend to avoid them altogether? Or are they okay to use as long as you've created them yourself or have permission to use someone else's in your work?

Snowfly

In what context? In production work, as long as theft isn't involved, cheatiness is a virtue.

pigart

As long as it's not theft and you are saving time it is good. Your client/boss doesn't care if you painted every single strand of grass or just used a custom brush, they just care how much time you spent and how good it looks.

Katmog

Yes that's what I was thinking too, they help to add a lot of detail in a short amount of time and are really useful for environments. 

Of course they're not okay to be used if they're stolen, but I was mainly wondering if it devalues the quality of your work/portfolio if you can tell they've been used. 

I was also wondering whether many artists create their own custom brushes or just tend to buy ones on gumroad etc?

AtticusMars

Katmog said:

I know using photoshop custom brushes is generally looked down upon and considered as cheating by some people

wat

MagicSugar

AtticusMars said:

Katmog said:

I know using photoshop custom brushes is generally looked down upon and considered as cheating by some people

wat

Wait til you reach ADVANCE CHEATING KNOWLEDGE and realize you don't even need to use stinkin photoshop BUT still CAN open, edit and save photoshop files 

It's a scary technique, get help from a legit mentor.

Geezus

Whatever gets you the best results the fastest... so long as you're not stealing.

Gheromo

Just use whatever gets the job done faster. Be it custom made brushes, pre made zbrush models, alphas, kit bashing, photo bashing. If in the end result looks great and you saved yourself days of work, who cares?

Ged

Sometimes your peers will be more impressed if you make everything yourself, just because of how unique your creation is and how hard youve worked to achieve that result. Bosses or companies dont care about that, they want a good concept done quickly (with no stealing or copyright issues).

fdfxd2

by this logic sculpting is cheating because box modelling is hard.

kanga

Tools are never a substitute for raw talent. I have taught a number of extremely talented artists with ZBrushtraining, who could already draw/paint/design and wanted to use 3d as a method to elevate their production quality. They were all very excited about the possibilities an extra dimension offers and they all went on to make great work immediately afterwards. All of them though already had a rock solid fundamental understanding of art principles. The brush never makes the painter. As far as people not liking your tools, well that is a non issue compared to what you make.

ExcessiveZero

Not at all, if someone took a pair of scissors and angle cut a painting brush then you were like dude can I have one of these brushes? and hes like sure man, so you take that and paint a masterpiece, would that be cheating ? 

it is just tools.

Steppenwolf

I wouldn't necessarely use them for front page portfolio stuff but in production everything goes that gets you quicker to a finished asset as long as you're not breaking any copyrights or license agreements.
Never heard of custom PS brushes being considered cheating, except for photo brushes in speedpaint competitions.

Shiniku

Yeah.. the whole "using brushes is cheating" mentality sounds like something a student or instructor might tell you, but is non-existent in the professional world.  There's no such thing as cheating, you just do what it takes to achieve the best results within a given timeline. Of course stealing is bad but that should be a given

Also... if you've got no talent I don't care what kind of photoshop forest brush you have, you're not gonna make something that looks good or convincing. At the end of the day it still takes skill and practice to achieve appealing results, and using premade brushes are only a short time saver, not some sort of crime. 

kanga

Shiniku said:

...if you've got no talent I don't care what kind of photoshop forest brush you have, you're not gonna make something that looks good or convincing....

This.

musashidan

Anyone that's ever used ZBrush has used the Dam standard brush. This brush was made by a bloke called Damien. It was so popular that Pixologic decided to incorporate it as a default brush........enough said. The brushes are just tools. Use them. Create cool shit.