I use Adobe Fresco alongside Nomad Sculpt. Fresco for 2D textures, brush effects, and finishing touches. Nomad Sculpt for the 3D work. Different tools, different strengths.
Here are the brushes that are actually worth using in 2026.
What comes with Fresco
Adobe Fresco ships with a decent set of pixel and vector brushes. The live brushes (oil and watercolor) are unique to Fresco and work well for organic textures. The default pixel brushes are fine for basic painting.
For most illustration work, the built-in set covers the basics. Where it falls short is specialty effects: multicolor gradients, texture stamps, and emoji/icon sets.
Free brushes worth downloading
Kyle T. Webster's brushes come included with your Adobe subscription. Huge library, well-organized. His inking and sketching brushes are particularly good.
Adobe's own Fresco community shares free brush packs through Behance. Quality varies. Download a few, test them, delete what doesn't work. Don't hoard brushes you'll never use.
Premium brushes
Premium packs make sense when you need something specific that doesn't exist in the free libraries. Multicolor brushes that paint with gradient effects. Emoji stamp brushes for quick icon work. Texture brushes that mimic specific materials.
I built two brush packs for Fresco based on what I needed for my own work:
The Multicolor Brush Pack paints with multiple colors in a single stroke. Gradient effects, rainbow lines, color transitions. Useful for abstract work and adding color variation to illustrations.
The Emoji Brush Pack has 64+ hand-drawn emoji stamps. One stroke per emoji. Built these for adding playful elements to compositions without drawing each icon from scratch.
How to install brushes in Fresco
Download the .abr file to your iPad. Open Fresco, go to the brush panel, tap the "+" icon, and import. The brushes appear in a new set. You can reorganize them, rename the set, or delete individual brushes you don't need.
What to look for in a brush pack
Pressure sensitivity. Good brushes respond to Apple Pencil pressure for line variation. If every stroke looks the same regardless of pressure, the brush wasn't built for iPad.
Resolution. Low-res brushes pixelate on zoom. Look for packs built at high DPI.
Practical variety. Five useful brushes beat fifty mediocre ones. Quality over quantity.
Fresco vs Procreate brushes
They're not interchangeable. Fresco uses .abr format (shared with Photoshop). Procreate uses its own .brush format. A brush built for one won't work in the other.
If you work in both apps, you need separate brush sets for each.
About the Creator
nebenzu is run by Ben, a Munich-based designer and 3D artist with a community of 128,000+ followers across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and X, focused on Nomad Sculpt workflows. The courses come from years of daily work in Nomad Sculpt, creating 3D typography, materials, and visual experiments.
You can find free tutorials and behind-the-scenes content on the nebenzu YouTube channel and Instagram.
