What it does
Paints strokes. With no drawing layer selected, painting makes a new one: a vector drawing layer (editable strokes, sharp at any size) or a raster brush layer (pixels). With a drawing layer selected, the brush follows that layer's kind.
How to use it
- Click the Brush button (no default shortcut).
- Drag to paint.
- Press + Frame (F7) to hold the current drawing for the frame length, then start a new blank drawing and move there.
- Turn on Onion to see neighbouring drawings as ghosts.
Options bar
| Name | What it does | Default/range |
|---|
| Color | Brush colour (no alpha; use Opacity). | Magenta |
| Size | Brush diameter in pixels. | 24; 1–1024 |
| Hardness | Edge hardness. Raster only. | 60% |
| Opacity | Stroke opacity. | 100% |
| Pressure | How much pen pressure thins the stroke. Vector only. | 70% |
| Taper In / Out | Pixels over which a stroke grows from / shrinks to a point. Vector only. | 0; 0–4096 |
| Spacing | Dab spacing as a fraction of size. Raster only. | 15%; 2–100% |
| New | Vector or Raster: the kind of layer painting creates. Shown when no drawing layer is selected. | Vector |
| Smooth | Stroke smoothing, shared with the Pencil. | 20%; 0–100% |
| + Frame | Hold this drawing, then start a new blank one. Needs a selected drawing layer. | — |
| Frame length | Frames each drawing holds before + Frame's new one (1 = on ones, 2 = on twos). | 1; 1–240 |
| Onion | Toggle onion skinning. | Off |
| › | Onion skin settings (below). | — |
Onion Skin settings
| Name | What it does | Default/range |
|---|
| Before | Drawn frames shown before the current one. | 0–20 |
| After | Drawn frames shown after the current one. | 0–20 |
| Opacity | Opacity of the nearest ghost; the rest fade off. | 0–100% |
| Before / After colour | Tint colour for earlier / later ghosts, and its strength. | 0–100% |
| Hide during playback | Hides ghosts while playing. | — |
Shortcuts
| Action | Mac | Windows/Linux |
|---|
| New drawing frame (+ Frame) | F7 | F7 |
| Hold the drawing one more frame | F5 | F5 |
| Hold the drawing one frame less | ⇧F5 | Shift+F5 |
B and N set the work area, not brush keys.