In order to make a brush similar to the one featured above, the tutorial will be split into three categories. The circles, the drips and then making it into a brush. Let?s start off with the circles.

Step 1 -
Create a new document around 500 x 500 with the background as white.

Now select the eclipse tool from the tool panel and make sure the settings at the top are the same as follows:

Now you can start creating the circles. So click and hold anywhere roughly in the centre of your canvas, and then hold down the shift key so your circle stays in proportion, drag the mouse to make the circle then let go when you are happy with it. The circle below is a guide to how big you want the circle to be:

We now have our first circle, this is the basic circle that is used in these brushes. So now we can start making some slightly more complicated ones.

These are the common variants of the slightly more complex circles, and I?ll give a guide on how to create each:

In order to make the circle on the left, duplicate your original circle and then move the new circle into it?s own spot on the canvas. like so:

It?s best to create a new group at this point so you can organise your circles and it makes it much more easier when you piece your circles together. so create a new group, call it what ever you want and then move this new shape into that group.

Duplicate this shape, then go to edit > transform > scale, click the chain at the top and then reduce your circle size by changing it in the box and not on the canvas, this is important as we want to keep it centralized with the circle behind:

As you can see in the image above, I?ve reduced it to 80%, 80% is a good number to begin with, so I recommend you do the same. When you?ve entered this, apply the transformation.

Now your circle should be slightly smaller than the one behind it, and in the very centre of it.

Go to your layer box and double click the black box on your selected shape and change this colour to white. Your circle should look something like this now:

And this is the first of the slightly more complex circles that we will be using for our brush.

To make the other variant shown earlier above, we can use this group of shapes and then add to it a little more using the same method above.So now duplicate the group in the layers panel, and again, move it to a new location on the canvas like so:Now duplicate the white shape in the new group. Again, go to edit > transform > scale and decrease the circle by the same percentage as you did last time, so in this instance, as I used 80% before, I will use it again.Apply the transformation, and now double click on the white box on your selected shape and change this to black.You should now have 3 variants of the circle all together on your canvas similar to the three below:

So now we have the circles done, we can start piecing together our first brush by grouping these circles up into one pile etc.

For the brush featured at the start of this tutorial, it is comprised of 2 of the circles on the left in the image above, 2 middle ones and 1 of the circles on the right.

So duplicate your basic circle shape once, and your semi complicated circle group once. Then move them all into a big pile of circles. Experiment with the layer ordering so the different types of circles are overlapping one and other until you get an arrangement you are happy with, like the image below:

You may have noticed that the brush at the start of this tutorial has different sized circles.

So now change the sizes of the circles by selecting a group in the layer panel and go to edit > transform > scale, you should make sure to press the chain to keep the proportions correct and then change the size of the shape, this time you can change the size of the shape using the surrounding box inside the canvas if you want to, as the shapes will all change at once this time.

After manipulating the sizes of the circles, re-arrange them slightly until you?re happy with the layout like so:

Yes, it does look very different than the image before, but I kept playing with the shapes after resizing them to make a better arrangement =p

That?s it for the circles section. Now we will move onto drips!

Step 2 -
In the same document as your circles, change the tool in the shapes section to the rounded rectangle tool, and then change the radius to 5 pixels, also have the foreground colour set to black.

Create the shape anywhere in the canvas, make it a reasonable length, and make it thin so the top and bottom ends of the shape are rounded and not flat. i.e:

We?ve now created our first drip, and the rest aren?t much different, but there?s 2 different kinds of variations that we will use:

As you may have noticed, ?v1? is a proportional scaled down version of the original. ?v2? is a smaller drip than the original in length, but retains it?s width. It?s very important that each drip keeps the same rounded edge, which is why ?v2? is not using the scale down method similar to ?v1? but a slightly more complexed method.

Below is an example of ?v2? compared to a drip that is scaled down in length only using the scale method.

Here you can see ?v2? keeps the same rounded edge as the original drip, and the other one dulls the edge off.

So here is how to make the ?v2? version:

First duplicate your original drip, then move the new drip to a new location.Now take the pen tool, hold ctrl and click inside the shape and now release the ctrl key. You should now see the points of the shape, 3 at the top and 3 at the bottom. We are going to select the bottom 3 points only, so hold ctrl again, click and hold the left mouse button outside of the shape and drag the selection box over the 3 points, then release the mouse button, then release the ctrl key.The bottom 3 points of the shape should now be filled in grey like so:Now hold ctrl again and click and hold the left mouse button on any of the 3 grey points, then hold the shift key down as well, so now you should be holding down ctrl key, the left mouse button and the shift key all at the same time. Now drag the points upwards until you get around half way, then let go of the mouse button, and then let go of shift and ctrl.And that?s how you make different size drips with them all having the same rounded edge.

Now you can duplicate these drips and position them under neath the circles. Make sure that no drips are poking out of the top of the circles, and none of the drips are over lapping any of the white parts of the circles. See the example below:

After all of that, you can now make it into a brush.

Step 3- Save your work first, then go to layer > flatten image, all of your shapes should now be in one layer called “background”. Change the layer box to channels by clicking the channels tab, now you should see the different channels, and they should all be selected. Click and hold the left mouse button on the RGB channel and drag the pointer down into the dashed circle button located at the bottom of the channel panel.

You will now see the marching ants going around you shape in the canvas. Now go to select > inverse and click back from the channels tab to the layer tab. Now create a new layer layer > new layer, change your foreground colour to black, then go to edit > fill select the foreground colour in the drop down box and click “ok”. Now click the eye on the background layer to hide it, and then you should have your black shape on a transparent background like so:

Finally, go to edit > define brush preset then name it something, click “ok” and you?re done! Remember to save your brush set. But do not save changes to your work, as you can then re-open it, move the drips and circles around and create many new brushes quickly.

Using the methods in this tutorial, you can also make some of the circles and drips semi-transparent by changing the opacity of the layer to 50% before you flatten the image.