Reply To: Why was Grease Pencil included in Blender?

[Paul Caggegi]

Hey Randall! It’s a valid question. I myself used to ask the same about features like the VSE, or even sculpt, when applications such as DaVinci Resolve and Z-Brush existed. While Blender is a great tool for just modelling, texturing and rigging alone, there are points along the pipeline involving note taking, illustration, storyboarding, concept art and more.

Initially, Grease Pencil was just added for notes. You could pass files back and forth, scribble out some grease pencil notes, or sketch rough revisions for animators, send the file back, and more easily collaborate.

But from 2.80+ it became its own dedicated module which could handle 2D illustration and animation, and it’s gotten quite a bit of a following! There are of course applications which do 2D work better. There is no argument there. They do it better for a single reason: that is the specific task that they were designed to do. In a working pipeline, departments have to liaise and collaborate, share files, and agree on certain standards. In a small studio, it is quite possible to complete a project using ONLY Blender, and take a production from initial concept to finished render, including all the steps and keeping files all accessible and readable by Blender.

It’s about to get ANOTHER overhaul, integrating it further with Blender’s other features such as materials, geometry nodes, etc. In the meantime, if you’re at all interested in learning how to use some of its features, I created a FREE course here called DRAW! which should give you a comprehensive rundown of how to access, use, and even illustrate using the Grease Pencil as it currently is.

https://cgcookie.com/courses/grease-pencil-basics-an-introduction-to-blender-s-grease-pencil