@Veronika Escape Motions - Thank you for the tip and the brushes! I tested them out and here are my thoughts:
Here's me testing out the custom expressive oil brushes I downloaded:
![](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAYAAAAfFcSJAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAADsQAAA7EAZUrDhsAAAANSURBVBhXYzh8+PB/AAffA0nNPuCLAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC)
They do look/feel a lot more like actual dry brush, but not scumbling, because Rebelle's brush engine currently doesn't have dynamic bristles. Notice now no matter how "rough" I try to make the strokes, they are always contained in neatly and perfectly consistent widths and edges, making them much less expressive. This is because the bristles can't splay and create unpredictable shapes.
Here's what dynamic bristles can do in Photoshop:
![](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAYAAAAfFcSJAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAADsQAAA7EAZUrDhsAAAANSURBVBhXYzh8+PB/AAffA0nNPuCLAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC)
These are only three separate strokes. See how expressive these strokes get when the bristles can clump together and splay apart based on tilt, direction, and pressure? This is what I really need in Rebelle because I use this type of brush so much in my work. They actually feel like real natural media due to the dynamic expressiveness and give me the unpredictability and chaotic look I love (but still controllable and repeatable).
And there are also Photoshop brushes that even without the dynamic bristles, can still impart very expressive results. Here's one single brush shape, but with three different settings. These are also some of my most used brushes in Photoshop (these are also three separate strokes only):
![](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAYAAAAfFcSJAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAADsQAAA7EAZUrDhsAAAANSURBVBhXYzh8+PB/AAffA0nNPuCLAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC)
I had tried exporting those brush shapes into Rebelle and experimented with various settings, but all I could get were predictable and limiting results due Rebelle's brush engine's limitations:
![](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAYAAAAfFcSJAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAADsQAAA7EAZUrDhsAAAANSURBVBhXYzh8+PB/AAffA0nNPuCLAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC)
Maybe the dev team needs to really analyze Photoshop's brush engine and figure out how it is able to achieve such expressiveness under the hood, and then apply what they learned to Rebelle's brush engine. There are some inherent limitations currently in Rebelle's brush engine that will probably require some pretty major overhauls in order to achieve the kind of results I can get in Photoshop's brush engine
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