10 Best Procreate Oil Brushes (Free & Paid Brush Packs)

Introduction

Oil painting, and art more broadly, is a form of self-expression, relaxation, and enjoyment for many people.

However, producing beautiful oil paintings aren’t as easy as it seems. 

It requires a laborious dedication of painting on every single brushstroke, washing and taking care of delicate brushes, purchasing canvases and paints, and replacing materials every other week. 

Digital art has offered an alternative, where you can avoid these inconveniences but produce equally breathtaking artworks.

Today, we’re going to examine the oil painting brushes available for Procreate, one of the most popular digital art platforms for aspiring professional or leisure artists. 

The most Procreate offers for oil painting is a “wet blending” option, but you’re going to need paintbrushes first before you start blending anything.  

Navigating the vast market of Procreate brushes can be overwhelming, so to help you make the most out of Procreate and its wonderful oil painting studio without getting lost on the web, this article is going to cover the 10 Best Procreate Oil Brushes, both paid and free.

We will examine each of their pros and cons, what you can expect to get out of them, and what to be careful of.

1. The Painterly Pack

This brush set contains 17 custom brushes.

Price: $8-10

Purchase here

Pros 

If you want to paint realistic portraits, this brush set is for you. 

All the tools needed to create a realistic piece of art are included in this brush set, ranging from wet oil brushes, large rollers, and dry block-in brushes. 

Some brushes are designed for you to cover large spaces with paint, while others allow you to work on the small details that bring your painting to life.

Sadie Lew, the creator of these custom brushes, has also offered a free sample of the “Bristle Brush Linen” brush included in the set.

You can download it for free here.

Additionally, two specialty brushes mimic Impressionist art, which uses small, thin, but visible brush strokes, and the style of American artist Jackson Pollock, who embraced the complete opposite technique by splashing large quantities of liquid household paint onto his canvases.  

Cons

These brushes are only compatible with Procreate versions 4+, so if you have an older version, you’ll be unable to use it.

Some online reviewers say it was easy to download and install this brush set, but others say they had a hard time.

“Why can’t I download these brushes? It’s so freaking difficult.”, wrote one review. 

Guerilla Craft’s 52 Oil Paint Brush Set 

This brush set contains 52 oil paintbrushes.

Price: $18-20

Purchase here

Pros

To contrast the first brush set we looked at, this brush set takes on a more light and fun vibe. 

Its color options are vibrant and rich, such as the golden yellow background shown in the picture above and a beautiful ocean blue. 

This brush set offers a large number of brushes for a reasonable price as well. 

Within the sphere of oil painting, this brush set offers a variety of textures for different purposes,  including a dry flat brush, a thin oil canvas brush, a linen oil canvas brush, a gritty oil brush, a spatula brush, a rough oil canvas brush, and a great oil brush amongst many others.

Although these brushes are designed for oil painting in particular, their use is not limited to just that one particular style. 

You can use these brushes as texture brushes for your illustrations or add a splash of color to your backgrounds. 

Cons

The diversity of brushes can be handy for experienced Procreate artists, but for new digital artists, it might become hard to navigate. 

Some of the brush names distinguish their purposes quite clearly; however, they appear the same; most notably, the round drying brush and wet oil canvas brush, both of which you can view in the product display in the link above. 

Finally, these brushes will be difficult to use for creating realistic paintings as it’s less detail-orientated and aims for a style that blends realism and fun abstract art.

Sometimes if you want to switch up your painting style and try some portraits, these brushes will most likely be a letdown. 

Sargent’s Oil Brush Set 

This brush set contains 14 custom brushes. 

Price: $6-8

Purchase here

 

Pros

These gorgeous brushes are inspired by Impressionist painter John Singer Sargent’s art style. 

The creator of these brushes painted on an actual canvas, then scanned the brush strokes at high resolution, so the brush strokes are guaranteed to look like it was painted on a real canvas (since it technically was). 

All brushes also feature the same fabric canvas texture, ensuring that each of your brush strokes feels like it’s being painted on the same canvas and that it maintains consistent texture throughout your work.  

The canvas texture mimics the canvases that Sargent used as well. 

Online reviewers have written that these brushes helped them add more depth to their paintings and that they have an excellent feel.

Cons

These brushes are geared towards Sargent’s art style, so it might be difficult to use to portray other painting styles. 

As with many other brush sets, some users have had difficulties installing this brush set too, have ended up with empty files with nothing left to extract, or being unable to download each brush individually after purchasing the set as a whole. 

Moreover, these brushes don’t work well with the newly updated Procreate 5 engine.

Online reviewers have asked for updated versions of the brushes to keep up with the new software, but the creator has avowed that there will be no more updates to the brushes. 

In response to a comment, the creator of the brush set wrote, “It’s more about how you use them to get a Sargent look. Technically any brushes can be used to paint like Sargent, so if that’s the look you’re after, I definitely recommend studying Sargent and his painting methods!” 

Whether these brushes can help you achieve a Sargent style is ultimately dependent on you. 

Gold Oil Paint Background Set  

Although not made up of brushes, this bundle contains 68 gold oil paint backgrounds. 

Price: $8-10

Purchase here

Pros

This product isn’t a collection of brush sets, but it deserved recognition in this list due to its sheer beauty of rich golden oil paint backgrounds. 

The set includes 68 300 JPG files that are 3600 x 3600 pixels (high resolution), which can be added to your paintings as backgrounds, as well as other crafts such as scrapbooks, graphic projects, or textiles. 

In most other brush sets, you won’t be able to find such unique colors that give off elegant, classy, and luxurious feels. 

Each background appears to be made up of hyper-realistic strokes, using thick oil paint lined with glints of shiny gold in every stroke. 

This set of backgrounds is also ridiculously cheap, considering how many pictures you’re getting in one pack. 

Cons

Of course, this set is still composed of background JPGs, not brush strokes. 

Although the colors of these oil paint backgrounds are exquisite, you won’t be able to use them in your regular oil painting. 

This set won’t supply you with the basic tools needed for painting, nor will it be fitting for every painting, but it will offer you something to make your paintings dazzle from time to time. 

 Oil Paint Brush Set by Artwork by Gabrielle

This set contains 18 brushes and 17 canvas textures.

Price: $9

Purchase here

Pros 

This brush set has a simple design, even with straightforward names such as streaks, paint glob, and 2-ounce paint tube. 

Its simplistic design makes it easy to use for new artists, especially while still preserving the quality that more experienced Procreate artists expect. 

To accompany the standard brushes, there are also two smudge brushes in the set: one that smudges the brush strokes completely, and the other slightly blurring the edges and mixing the overlapping colors of strokes. 

The product display in the link to purchase only features one color, turquoise, to highlight the differences in texture, tone, and vibrancy of the brushes, but the set contains more colors that you’ll need for your paintings. 

This set is great for realistic portraits. 

Cons

You’re going to need the latest version of Procreate to use this brush set. 

Its number of brushes is also quite limited if you want to paint larger landscapes and abstract art. 

Georg’s Paint Brush Bundle 

This brush set contains more than 150 brushes.

Price: $10-12

Purchase here

Pros

This brush bundle is arguably the best deal you’re going to find online for Procreate paintbrushes.

In total, for only $10, you get more than 150 brushes, including not only oil paint brushes, but also those for watercolor, acrylic, ink, glaze, marker, pencil, pastel, natural media, and for blending in general. 

You also get more than 55 bonus color swatches.

To seal the deal, the package comes with free updates and brushes after you’ve made your purchase (without additional costs).

For instance, the “Sir Ripples Knight Oil Brushes” was added to the brush bundle (that you would’ve already have downloaded) later after its initial launch.

The creator has attached more sample images and brush demos here.

If you want to check out a similar brush bundle that includes even more brushes in a set, check out the megapack of 550 brushes sold for only $15-18 by Georg’s paintbrushes as well. 

It’s available here.

Cons

It’s hard to pin down exactly how high-quality each of the individual brushes is, given the sheer amount of them included in the bundle. 

The entire bundle also doesn’t have a particular style it aims for, since it has so many different kinds of brushes, from watercolor to ink, making it messy to sort through. 

You shouldn’t purchase this bundle unless you’re the kind of artist that loves to experiment with different art styles. 

If you’re looking only to do oil paintings, this bundle is going to give you a headache with its flood of brush options. 

Classical Oil Brush Set 

This brush set contains ten brushes.

Price: $14-17

Purchase here

Pros

This brush set is perfect for a more traditional style of an oil painting. 

As shown in the picture, this is perfect for capturing real-life objects, fruits (lemon) in particular, and scenery while demonstrating your skillfulness in every brush stroke. 

Unlike many other brushes, this set seeks to portray realism while also making it visible that it’s a painting, so it’s extra impressive for your audience.

These brushes will help you preserve the depth and texture of your overall painting.

Finally, the set also includes a canvas image that will give your final art piece a canvas look.

Cons

This brush set is priced relatively high for a small number of brushes: around $14-17 for only ten brushes. 

It also has a very limited color palette, only featuring palettes titled Lemon Still Life Glass, Lemon Still Life Lemon, and Lemon Still Life Background. 

The names are quite ambiguous. 

Essentially, the colors are basic shades of yellow, navy blue, brown, green, and white. 

These gloomy colors are limited to basically only painting lemons beside glasses of water, but if you’re not a big fan of that, then this brush set will bore you quickly.

This set is good only for those who want to stick strictly to traditional painting, without the vibrant colors of other artworks.

 Oil Paint Brush and Stamp Set 

This set includes ten oil brushes, five splatter stamps, and one canvas texture. 

Price: $13-16

Purchase here

Pros

The creator of this brush set says you can use it for both realistic art and abstract art. 

It’s worth listing what each one of the brushes are since it’s a short list, but they each have clear names that describe their purpose: a detail brush, tapered brush, bristle brush, old bristle brush, brush strokes, dry brush, flat brush, pallet knife, canvas texture brush, and oil blender brush. 

What’s great about the canvas texture included in this brush set is that it’s in the form of a brush, instead of a JPG or some other kind of image, so you can paint on the texture on detailed spaces you want or simply in a more controlled manner. 

This set also includes five different splatter stamps that are great for creating a real-life oil paint effect that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to create using normal brushes. 

The splatter stamps include a fine dot splatter brush, a blob stamp brush, a splatter stamp brush, a spider stamp brush, and finally a splatter drip stamp. 

In particular, these stamps will help you create a modern feel to your painting, with elements of abstract art mixed in. 

Cons

This brush set is quite expensive: you get only ten brushes and five stamp effects for $13-16. 

The product description doesn’t say what kinds of colors the brushes come in. However, the images displayed show only very vibrant colors. 

For instance, in a painting depicting mountains, the brushes were sky-blue or, at the very least, not the deep color arctic mountains typically are. 

The other sample images also only used vivid colors. 

If you want to do more traditional painting or more realistic paintings, the limited colors in this brush set might be difficult to work with.

Oil Paint 2018

This brush set contains five oil painting brushes.

Price: Free

Purchase here

Pros

The brushes included in this set are based on brush strokes painted on canvas using high-quality Winsor Newton, primed with gesso. 

Winsor Newton paints are one of the best paints on the oil paint market, and the gesso gives the perfect finish for brush strokes on a canvas. 

So it’s incredible for you to be able to get that effect while only having to work on your iPad at home. 

Not to mention, it’s also completely free to download online!

It contains the “traditional brushes,” including the Small Liner brush, the Tue Oil brush, the Bristle Brush, the Super Wet brush, and the Legacy Smudger brush, all of which will give you natural bristle and color blending with every stroke.

The same creator also put up another brush set for sale in 2019, available here if you want to check it out. 

Though, the brushes in this free brush set are already more than satisfactory. 

Cons

The set includes very few brushes (only five different types), which will definitely not be enough for more complex works of art, such as realistic portraits. 

You’re likely going to end up spending additional money on brushes needed for your paintings. 

Painter’s One Brush Set 

This brush set includes one multi-purpose brush.

Price: $4-5

Purchase here

Pros

In this “set,” you get one multi-purpose brush that’s single-handedly enough for you to create a beautiful oil painting, as shown in the picture above. 

You can adjust the thickness of your brush strokes through the included pressure-sensitive settings and through tilting your Apple Pen (preferably) or drawing device as well. 

The brush also lets you soften the edges of your strokes, smudge or blend the colors, and adjust the opacity of them as you wish. 

Additionally, you can also access a Lettering version of this brush by turning on the Streamline setting, which will give you smoother curves for calligraphy writing.

Cons

After all, this “set” only includes one brush. 

Although the brush is multi-purpose, if you’re not familiar or experienced with adjusting the settings on the brush, you may find it difficult to access its different functions.

Moreover, brush strokes may be inconsistent since it relies on your control entirely. 

For newer Procreate artists, you should stick to a brush set that separates the different uses for different brushes for you already.

To Wrap Up

Oil painting is one of the most breathtaking art styles there are in the art world. 

To the joy of many, Procreate has made the art form more accessible than ever before, by bringing the canvas and oil paints to a small device that you can slip into your backpack wherever you go. 

Don’t forget to slip these brush sets into your bag as well, to unlock more of the digital art world’s oil painting studio.