A couple weeks back I got a great suggestion from one of my readers to present a list of my favorite Photoshop brushes. While I was thrilled with the idea and still am, I quickly came to the realization that limiting myself to a single short list was going to be near impossible. I have a ton of brushes in my own library and if you go looking for more you’ll find the options exhausting. I’m always amazed on how large and talented the design community has become.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to break up my favorite brushes into separate categories. This list will focus on grungy brushes. I’m going to limit myself to 15 in an effort to keep the list from becoming overwhelming.
The Grunge List
- Abstract Grunge Brushes
A gorgeous assortment of 25 grunge and abstract brushes. Not very high res., but really well designed and great for dirtying up a background.
- High Res Grungy Texture Brushes
12 really high resolution grungy texture brushes. A lot of dirty textures, rocks and cracks.
- High Res Messy Spraypaint Brushes
More great brushes from Bittbox. The dirty graffiti look can really work sometimes, and hey, it’s so much better than looking at a site full of shiny reflected buttons!
- Subtle Grunge Textures
Because sometimes less is more! These are subtle, cleverly designed, grungy texture brushes that dirty up your background or text, without killing it
- Grunge Corner Brush Pack
Some really nice brushes for adding the grunge look to the corners of your image. Mid-size in resolution. Nice resource to have in the old designer toolbox.
- Spray Paint Splatter Brushes
I probably don’t need to place two spray paint brush sets on the same list, but these are pretty awesome as well. Plus, they are the brushes I used in my Create a Graffiti Effect tutorial.
- 36 Grunge Brushes
36 cool grunge elements brush pack. Most of them are rather small, but they can be used to add nice grunge elements to your work. This set also has some nice corner brushes.
- Retro Grunge Brushes
Trendy circle elements have been all the rage lately, so you can imagine if you add some grunge to it, the level of trendy you can achieve! Despite my obvious sarcasm these brushes are well designed and very useful to have.
- Fractured Rust
Really sick brush set for adding rust effects to your graphics.
- Tank Pattern Grunge Brushes
These are just fun! I don’t often have a need for tank tracks, but when I do, I know what brushes I’m using!
- XB Fences
Very grungy fence like elements. There are 24 brushes in this set and they are all high res.
- Grunge Brushes
Only a 5 brush set, but these brushes have a lot of character. Cracks, splatters and texture.
- Stamps
A set of 20 grungy text stamps. I love these stamp brushes!
- Defective Photo Brushes
I purposed to make this list not just grungy splatters and textures. A lot of these brushes have really awesome elements that you can use in your designs.
- Random Splatter Brushes
Only 5, but effective splatter grunge brushes.
List Complete
That completes my top 15 free grunge brushes list. Stay tuned for some more awesome free brush lists. Let me know what you think; I love comments!
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July 27th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
tasty brushes from function!
July 28th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Thanks for the mention dude, nice stuff. Love those spray paint brushes from Bittbox. Lovely post
July 28th, 2008 at 7:43 am
Thanks Adelle!
No problem Liam, I love those brushes, keep up the great work!
July 28th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Wow! Thank you so much!!
July 28th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Grunge is my favourite design style gives alot of things character… but depends on the job, good post.
Max | Design Shard
July 28th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Sweeeet brushes, thanks for sharing!
July 29th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Brilliant collection of 15 great Grunge Brush Sets, some real quality choices.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:46 am
There are some very nice brushes here
At the end of posts like this you should link to some other good places to find brushes, one for this article would be Bittbox - they have some awesome hi-res brushes.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Eli, Thanks for the comment and the good advice, I will definitely do that in the future. Most of these brushes are from Bittbox, Brusheezy, Deviant Art and WeFunction.
July 30th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I can’t wait for the next category