This section contains a list of tips related to the Alias sketching tools that will ease some tasks and increase your efficiency.

Brushes and Colors

When sketching, find the balance between quality and speed. While a small brush stamp bias may improve the smoothness, it results in slower brush performance; using a large stamp bias provides additional speed, but may not provide the quality.

Try to avoid big texture brushes that have variable brush radius or Rotate to Stroke turned on, as the combination slows performance.

To erase paint, flip the stylus around and use the eraser function at the end of the stylus.

To quickly switch between painting and erasing using the same brush, with a brush tool active press and release 1 to paint, or 2 to erase.

To create a horizontal brush stroke in an orthographic window, drag the middle mouse button or the equivalent stylus button.

To create a vertical brush stroke in an orthographic window, drag the right mouse button or the equivalent stylus button.

To snap a brush to a curve, click the button to the right of the prompt line (or hold down + (Windows) or + (Mac)).

You can snap a brush to invisible curves (ObjectDisplay > Invisible) or curves on invisible layers (Layers > Visibility > Invisible).

You can use any brush as a blur brush, sharpen brush, smear brush, dodge brush, or burn brush by setting Brush Mode to Blur, Sharpen, Smear, Dodge or Burn (respectively) in the Brush Options window.

To make any brush erase paint, set the Brush Color to black and set the Color Opacity to 0. (To keep these settings for the brush, turn on Preserve Color).

To change the colors in the Color Blender, set the current color (for example, using the RGB or HSV sliders) and then click a corner square in the Color Blender.

To store the current color in the Color Swatches, drag the Current Color Swatch over a square on the Swatches board.