At first, I started to develop characters like that - that's why I developed these brushes in the first place. There are not a lot of Black characters that accurately represent us.

VJP: I've grown up with cartoons and anime and everything. I had to do more, especially for the Black community to show positive representations and creating a space where people were included.ĪLLURE: Making brush tools for Procreate and Photoshop started off as a test project. I was impacted a lot by what happened in 2020, especially the summer of 2020 and George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. And then after college I'm like, 'I don't want to do this.' Then, during the pandemic, when everyone was slowed down, I decided to get an iPad. And then it quickly switched over to design in college. So I pursued business because that's what I'd been doing a lot in high school. VEGALIA JEAN-PIERRE: It started when I was a kid, but I didn't reenter the art space until after college because, in high school, my advisor said you should pursue other things besides art because more realistic. What started off as a test project became permanent after a drawing Jean-Pierre made of her mother went viral on social media in April of last year. With Jean-Pierre's brushes, animators are able to accurately depict various hair types, cultivating a lane in digital art that makes creating Black hair - specifically coarse, curly textures - possible.

These tools can imitate the look of traditionally physical mediums like airbrushing, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, oils, and pen. 'Digital brushes' are the tools graphic designers use on apps like Procreate and Photoshop to make their drawings. As a result, she decided to make her very own digital brushes. But the tools frequently used by artists to create true-to-life features for Black folks were insufficient (or simply nonexistent). A lover of all things geek - anime, Marvel, cartoons, and DC comics - Jean-Pierre wasn't used to seeing herself in the stories she grew up loving, which contributed to her desire to create characters of her own. Jean-Pierre, a Haitian digital artist and animator from Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the creator of unique pro-tool brushes for Procreate and graphic design that cater specifically to Black women's hair.

Black hair brush photoshop