Free Adobe Photoshop Brushes for Digital Background Painting

Designer, illustrator, and background painter Susan Yung shares an exclusive set of brushes to bring your scenes to life

When we think of animation, our minds go straight to the famous characters in movies such as Toy Story, Spirited Away, Up, or Frozen. While it’s true that a lot of work has gone into creating and bringing these characters to life, have you ever stopped to think about where these stories take place? Who would Elsa and Anna be without the magical realm of Arendelle, or Buzz and Woody without the familiar and comforting setting of Andy’s bedroom?

It doesn’t matter how great your characters are, if the background or setting of your narrative isn’t convincing, you will not be able to tell your story effectively. Here, we explore the basics of background painting and Domestika teacher Susan Yung (@suzcorriander) shares her favorite Adobe Photoshop brushes to get you started.

Susan is a designer and illustrator based in the USA, who works mainly as a background painter for animation. She has worked with big-name studios in the world of animation such as Netflix, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Susan loved watching animated TV shows, series, and movies as a child and was determined to pursue a career in illustration.

She moved to Florida to study at Art College and was then offered an internship at a motion design studio in California. One area where she was given the opportunity to develop her skills was background painting, and she soon fell in love with this line of work.

There are several things to take into consideration when painting your background for animation, such as color, light, shapes, and texture. And, to achieve any of these things, you'll need to have a good grasp of the different brushes available and how to use them to achieve the desired effects.

The art of background painting

Background artists establish the color and style of a scene once it has been drawn by a layout artist. They may work the traditional way, or digitally using programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Whether it’s a city, a tropical island, or a fantasy realm, background painters really do bring whole new worlds to life through their work, providing a space for characters to move and interact in a natural and convincing way.

In fact, good background painting is an essential part of animation because it not only adds dimension, light, color, and texture to a scene, it also sets the mood. For example, a background painter may choose to paint a snowy mountain range gleaming brightly in the sunlight for a cheerful setting, or give that same scene a much darker, sinister mood, with long shadows creeping up the slopes.

If you want to pursue this career path, you must first train as an animator before you can go on to specialize in background painting, which means it will require some years of study and training. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn and try out some basic skills at home for your own creative pursuits!

In her course Digital Background Painting for Animation, Susan demonstrates how to bring a background to life in Photoshop through a step-by-step creative process - along with useful insider tips and tricks to paint like a pro.

One of the most common questions Susan is asked is about what brushes and textures she uses. There are so many brush sets out there, it can be difficult to know where to start. While Susan has a large collection of brushes, she actually admits to only using about 5% of them, while the rest are a backup collection.

Adobe Photoshop Brushes for Digital Background Painting

Click the button below to download the .zip file to your computer (you can use a free program such as WinZip to decompress the file). Once unzipped, you will find Susan's Adobe Photoshop Brushes in .abr format ready for you to use.

If you want to learn more about this content, you can do so by signing up to Susan’s course Digital Background Painting for Animation.

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