Marks

What marks are

Every stroke is Paint, Marks and Motion. Marks are what the stroke leaves. A stroke normally lays one Line of paint. With marks, the same stroke becomes a row of shapes along your path: beads, a stream, pools, stars or hatching. They are drawn live, in the brush's medium and colour, and can travel along the stroke, breathe, wobble and join into one shape where they meet. Nothing extra is painted: pause the painting and the marks hold still; play it and they move again.

Choosing marks

Marks belong to the brush, so they apply to your next strokes. Choose them in any of these places:

• The wheel's Marks and motion ring: tap a motion gauge, Amount, Speed or Pattern. Its ring of groups holds the motion families, then Line, then Shapes, Hatching, Liquid marks and the effect categories; drag along it to turn it to the last ones. Tap a group, then a mark. Line takes the marks off, back to a plain stroke.
• The brush's settings: tap Size, Strength or Water on the wheel. The Marks section sits under Paint.
• Brush Studio → Marks: tap More under Marks in the brush's settings, or open your brushes and tap the brush's Settings (Adjust active brush and motion), then Marks. It has every control below and the advanced ones.
• The library's Marks: every mark as a tile, put on the brush in hand.

Brushes that edit paint already on the page, such as the Water Brush, have no marks.

Each tile is a small rendered sample in your brush. Marks are sized to the brush width when you draw.

• Beads: mostly separate drops that sometimes join.
• Stream: a connected ribbon with changing necks.
• Pools: broad clusters that swell, join and pull apart.
• Diamonds, Tiles, Petals and Stars: sharp shapes that follow the path; stars breathe as they travel.
• Hatching: fine lines across the path. Motion → Hatch movement can keep them Fixed or let them Sway, Flutter or Orbit, with Hatch amount and Hatch rate. On the wheel, turning Hatch amount up from 0 sets a fixed hatch swaying.

The mark controls

Choose Motion to set any component moving on its own:

• Whole stroke moves the path, with any brush.
• Liquid movement, Hatch movement, Effect movement or Mark movement moves the selected marks. Marks move holds or resumes their movement. Travel and Liveliness, Grow and fade, Effect timing, Lifetime, Fade by, Shape over lifetime and Playback live here.
• Inside the marks moves colour within compatible marks: Still, Current, Ripples, Eddies, Wet / Dry and Edge Bloom. Set Interior amount, rate and scale. Keep outline still holds the marks and stops whole-stroke motion while their interior keeps moving. This row appears only where supported. For subtle washes, see Motion inside a wash.

Shape and Pencil remain in Marks. Shape has Mark size, Spacing, Joining and Edge softness. Advanced marks has pressure and variation. Advanced mark movement is in Motion: Breathing and rate, Travelling pulse length, Stretch, Wobble and rate, At the ends, and Interaction (Moving Appearance or Affect Wet Paint in wet media).

Still stops the whole stroke and its modifiers. Marks move holds a visible local pose without changing the mark recipe. Interior Still stops the colour movement. Stop all motion stops all three components.

For effects with secondary marks, Marks → Shape → Effect parts chooses Main + secondary, Main marks only, or just the secondary shape. Use this to paint drops separately from their impact rings. The secondary recipe stays saved when hidden. For secondary rings, Ring perspective sets the viewing angle and Ring angle rotates the ellipse.

Tip: To change the marks of a stroke already painted, use Tools → Select stroke: its inspector has the brush settings' controls as well as these.

Join other strokes

Marks from different strokes on one layer merge where they touch, like drops of the same liquid. Join other strokes 1 is a switch on the marks brush, under Joining: turn it off and the brush's next strokes keep their marks apart from every other stroke's. It stays as you set it when you choose another mark. A stroke's own marks still join each other, as Joining sets. Marks on different layers never merge, and with Inside the lines on, marks kept in one area never merge with marks in the next: the line between them works like a wall.

To change a stroke already painted, select it with Tools → Select stroke and use the same switch in its inspector.

Plus: Every mark and all hatch and interior movement are Free. The effect library includes 19 Free looks; the full collection needs Plus.