Need some help with smooth rendering

[Mongrel714]

Hey guys! Amateur traditional artist moving to digital media here.

I was doing some exercises at Ctrl + Paint and encountered something that kinda stumped me. After watching this video on controlled brush strokes, I tried to do his exercise worksheet. He said to focus on practicing smooth rendering and avoiding visible brush strokes. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong exactly, but I can't seem to get the "smooth fade" effect he talks about at all! No matter what I do there's always some visible brush marks. What am I doing wrong, are my brush settings wrong or something? I've got both opacity and flow set to pen pressure.

Here is my completed exercise so you can see what I mean.

 

[MrToM]

Try changing the 'Hardness' of the brush you are using.

When he says 'Soft' (as in brush) he means it has a low 'Hardness'.

You can either use Ctrl + Alt and the right mouse button to adjust brush size, (then move mouse left or right), or hardness, (move mouse up and down)...OR...
Open the brush panel and use the 'hardness' slider on the right hand side of the panel...OR...
When using the brush tool, click the brush icon on the left hand side of the menu bar (Its the one with the brush size in it).

It looks as if you have this set to something other than 100% but not quite low enough for the effect you are after.

Regards.
MrTom.

 

[Mongrel714]

Seems like that was it, thanks lots! =D