I am going to approach this topic from the viewpoint of making 2d drawings with the 2D Animation layout, however I believe this idea would be useful for 3D modelling as well…
The latest version of Blender has introduced the “Asset Shelf” located at the bottom of the 3d view. Here libraries of various types Brushes are displayed based on which tool is selected in the toolbar. For example, if one had the draw brush selected, the asset shelf would show the types of draw brushes available (Airbrush, Ink Pen, Pencil…etc). There are more filtering options and libraries, but one “library” type that would be very useful is a Favorites tab.
The Favorites tab would have pinned Brushes that, regardless of the mode Blender is in, would always be visible and selectable. For example, one could select Ink Pen from the favorites tab which would change the mode to Draw mode (if it is not already) and make the Ink Pen brush active . After drawing a stroke, one could pick the Grab brush from the favorites tab which would set the mode to Sculpt and make the Grab brush active.
This would make drawing and tweaking strokes much more efficient and reduce the number of manual mode changes needed to get access to a brush. It would also mean that the Favorites tab would need to be ‘pinned’ to the UI to make it always displayed.
The favorites tab would be populated by right clicking on a brush (i.e. Ink Pen), and selecting “Add to Favorites tab” from the context menu. Perhaps this should also be in the ‘Q’ Quick Favorites popup menu as well (right now brushes in Quick Favorites menu are mode dependent).
Here is a mockup image of a Favorites asset bar with Ink Pen (paint), Grab, (sculpt), Pinch (sculpt), Push (sculpt), Paint (vertex paint), and Color Replace (vertex paint). Smooth brush could be added. These the tools by far I use the most and am constantly mode changing to pick them.
