Stumble it!
I posted this video several days ago. Here is a little more info about how I use the brush tool in Adobe Illustrator.
I start by modifying the brush tool settings. To do this, simply double-click on the brush tool in the Tool palette. These are the settings that I used, but you can play around with it to see what works for you.
These settings basically show how much Illustrator smoothes your lines and curves. In general, I usually end up moving the sliders down from the default quite a bit, because I don’t like my drawing being over-”corrected” while I’m working. I keep it so the line smooths out a little, but still keeps most of the integrity of the original line I drew.
Next, I pick a brush. I normally use a regular ol’ round brush. I change the size depending on the line I want, with the width determined by my pen pressure. Double-click the brush in brush palette to see these settings.
I almost always move the “Variation” slider all the way up to get the maximum thick/thin line. Move it down to get less varied thicknesses. If you want a line that has the same thickness throughout, change “Pressure” to “Fixed”.
To help me out in the future, I made my own custom brush palette. All it contains is a bunch of round brushes at different sizes. You can do this by creating all your different brushes, then going to the arrow in right top corner of the brush palette and clicking “Save Brush Library”.
Give your brushes a name and save. The next time you want to use them, just go to this same menu and choose “Open Brush Library” to find your brushes.
This is what my custom brush library looks like:
I hope this makes things a little clearer when you view the video. More questions or comments? Drop a note below.
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December 13th, 2006 at 11:10 am
This was great!! I am gonna try it Thanks!
December 13th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Thanks Dani. This is exactly what i was looking for
December 14th, 2006 at 9:47 am
I was wondering, maybe its somewhere on this site that I’m missing, but I’m assuming you use a tablet of some sort. What would you recommend?
December 15th, 2006 at 11:14 am
great tutorial. I love messing with these brushes myself. I was wondering if you know of something. I like to outline stroke alot of my drawings I guess its not alway necessary but I like to do it for some things I do. When you draw with these brushes then go to outline stroke it does not stroke the thick to thin it changes the lines to the uniform min pt size. do you know if there is a way to get it to outline stroke the thick/think lines?
January 16th, 2007 at 1:53 am
In answer to Lindsey’s query, you need to first select the brush line you want, then go to Object and select Expand Appearance. This would convert the brush line into a shape. You can then choose to have a line around it. You might want to dig through the layers for this new object to get rid of the original line still buried within your new shape.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Great tutorial! But I don’t have a Mac so how would you do it in window xp.
May 8th, 2007 at 6:24 am
khoua, as far as I know, this whole process should be the same with Windows. The software is basically the same on both platforms.
May 11th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Great tutorial Dani!
Quick question… once I tried to save my new set of brushes, I did not see the “Save Brush Library” option when clicking on the arrow - I’m using Illustrator 10 -.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Carlos,
Open a new Illustrator document. Create all your custom brushes, then save your document in the following folder: Adobe Illustrator > Presets > Brushes. Give it a descriptive name that you can find later.
Now, restart Illustrator. If you go to the Window menu, then to “Brush Libraries” submenu, your new document should show up there.
I think this should work, but I can’t test this out because I don’t have Illustrator 10. Let me know if this works for you.
June 2nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Thanks for your help Dani!
June 29th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
im new to all this stuff but these instructions have given me a pretty good start. are there any tablets that you would recomment for someone with a little bit of experience and a relatively small budget? thanks for the help
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 am
MIKE,
Wacom brand tablets are the most widely used among digital artists. If you have a tight budget, I would recommend the Graphire model. I have made a previous post about tablets here:
http://danidraws.com/2007/01/22/wacom-tablets-how-to-get-started/
It explains the differences between the Wacom models and how to get started using them. Hope it helps!
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Thank! it is good setup
October 12th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Dude! you don’t realise how much I needed to know this.
Thanks mate.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:38 am
DANI,
When I am making my custom brush the option for pressure is greyed out. I have a wacom tablet and its working fine. What could be the cause?
Thanks,
Mike
June 25th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Hi Dani,
Thanks alot for your Tutorials, especially for this one. Helped me alot, using my wacom Cintiq much better.
I will come back soon, learning more ;o)
Thanks again,
Thoddy (from Germany)
July 30th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Hi Dani..(Ooops! Mr. Genius..!)
thanks lot for all the tutorials…its helped a lot…especially for a fresher like me…
thanks again..
Barry(India)