Industrial Textures by Pearlywinks
 
Industrial Textures is a collection packed with grit, character and beautifully imperfect surfaces, created for projects that need something a little stronger than a traditional paper background.
I wanted this collection to capture the surfaces we normally walk straight past — weathered steel, rusted metal, aged concrete, corrugated panels, galvanised finishes, brushed metal and oxidised copper — and turn them into something we can actually create with.
There’s something wonderful about all those scratches, marks, patches of rust and layers of age. No two areas feel completely the same, and that natural imperfection makes these textures fantastic for adding depth and atmosphere to digital artwork.
From subtle concrete to full-on rust
The collection includes a really useful mixture of lighter and darker industrial surfaces.
There are soft pale concrete and plaster textures that can sit quietly behind artwork, cool greys and galvanised metals, smooth brushed steel, distressed and scratched surfaces, corrugated metal and much stronger weathered finishes.
Then we get into those gorgeous rusty tones — from small areas of oxidation through to heavily rusted metal — alongside beautiful verdigris and copper patina with those unmistakable turquoise, green and burnt copper colours.
That means you can go anywhere from clean contemporary industrial to properly distressed and grungy.
There are so many ways to use them
Industrial Textures work brilliantly as complete backing papers, but they really come into their own when you start layering and experimenting with them.
You could use them to:
Create industrial, grunge, steampunk and masculine-style backgrounds
Add concrete, metal or rust effects to otherwise plain artwork
Fill lettering, shapes, frames and decorative elements
Add weathering to digital ephemera and journal pieces
Create metal-effect panels, signs and plaques
Layer rust over steel or concrete to build completely new surfaces
Use copper and verdigris textures for aged metallic effects
Add subtle scratches and distressing through blending
Create mixed-media and urban-style artwork
Combine them with photographic, botanical or fantasy artwork for contrast
Build backgrounds for double exposure and silhouette designs
Use sections of the textures rather than the entire sheet for small details and accents
And because the textures have plenty of natural variation, cropping into different areas can make the same paper look completely different from one project to another.
Brilliant for blending
This is a collection that really rewards experimentation.
Reduce the opacity of a scratched steel texture and it can become a wonderfully subtle distressed overlay. Blend rust with concrete and suddenly you have an aged wall. Place verdigris over another metallic surface and you can create the appearance of years of oxidation.
Used with blending modes, masks, overlays, shapes and double exposure, these textures can become part of your artwork rather than simply being used as a background.
You can make them bold and dramatic or knock them right back until there is only the slightest suggestion of texture showing through.
Designed for digital crafting
The Industrial Textures are supplied as high-quality A4, 300dpi digital papers, giving you plenty of detail for digital designing and high-quality printing.
They can of course be used inside Atelier by Pearlywinks, where you can really play with layering, blending and effects, but they are not restricted to Atelier. You can also use them in other compatible graphics and crafting software.
For me, this collection is all about finding beauty in surfaces that were never intended to be beautiful.
Scratched, oxidised, cracked, weathered and worn — Industrial Textures by Pearlywinks turns all of those imperfections into something worth creating with.