How to Set Up a Texture Painting Brush in Blender

Setting up a brush for texture painting in Blender involves preparing your 3D model with UV unwrapping and a base material, switching to Texture Paint mode, and configuring the brush settings. By applying custom textures, adjusting stroke modes, and modifying falloff curves, you can create powerful customized brushes for detail painting, stylized art, or realistic material blending.

1. Prepare Your Model and Material

Before setting up a paint brush, your object must be properly prepared for texturing.

  1. Select your object in the 3D Viewport.
  2. Ensure your model is UV unwrapped by switching to the UV Editing workspace, selecting all vertices in Edit Mode (A), and pressing U to select an unwrapping option (such as Smart UV Project or Unwrap).
  3. Switch to Texture Paint mode from the mode selection menu in the top-left corner of the viewport.
  4. In the Tool tab of the Sidebar (N key) or the Active Tool Properties panel, locate the Active Canvas section. If no texture exists, click New under Slots to add a base color image texture.

2. Load a Texture to the Brush

To paint patterns, noise, or specific details instead of solid colors, assign a texture to your brush.

  1. Open the Tool Properties tab in the Inspector panel on the right.
  2. Expand the Texture rollout menu.
  3. Click New to create a brush texture slot.
  4. Click the Properties icon (the small sliders icon next to the texture name) or go to the Texture Properties tab at the bottom of the main properties panel.
  5. Set the texture Type to Image or Movie to load an external file, or choose a procedural type like Clouds, Voronoi, or Musgrave.
  6. If using an image file, click Open and select your image.

3. Configure Brush Mapping and Stroke Settings

How the texture applies to the mesh depends on the mapping method and stroke type.

  1. Return to the Tool Properties panel and locate the Texture dropdown.
  2. Set the Mapping mode:
    • View Plane: Projects the texture straight from your current camera view onto the surface.
    • Tiled: Repeats the texture endlessly across the brush stroke.
    • Stencil: Displays the texture as an overlay on your screen. Hold Right-Click to move the stencil, Shift + Right-Click to scale, and Ctrl + Right-Click to rotate. Paint directly over the overlay to apply the texture to the mesh.
  3. Expand the Stroke rollout menu to choose how strokes are applied:
    • Change Stroke Method to Space for standard continuous painting.
    • Choose Anchored to click and drag to scale/rotate a single application of the brush texture.
    • Choose Line to draw straight paths of paint across the surface.

4. Fine-Tune Brush Softness and Strength

  1. Adjust Radius and Strength at the top bar or use hotkeys: F to resize the brush radius and Shift + F to adjust brush strength/opacity.
  2. Open the Falloff section to change the edge softness of the brush. Select the Smooth preset for soft blending or Constant for hard, pixel-sharp edges.
  3. Enable Pressure Sensitivity icons next to Radius or Strength if using a graphics tablet.

5. Save Your Texture and Image

Blender does not automatically save painted textures to your hard drive when you save the .blend file.

  1. Open the Image Editor window.
  2. Select the painted image from the drop-down menu at the top.
  3. Click Image > Save As to save your painted texture externally.