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FEBRUARY 13, 2004 Creating Custom Brushes for Illustrator, Part 2
Brush creation So now you have at least one nib that you think will work pretty well as an Art Brush. It's time for the easy part: converting your nib to a brush. To do this, open up your Brushes palette. [an error occurred while processing this directive]1. Select your group of symbols that you just sprayed onto your canvas, and drag it over to the Brushes palette. A dialog will pop up asking you which kind of brush you'd like to create. Select "New Art Brush," and click "OK."  2. A second dialog box will pop up asking you to select your brush options. It looks more complex than it really is. All you have to do is set the name of the brush and a few other options. "Direction" simply determines which side of the brush will appear at the end of a stroke. (You'd typically set it to "Left to Right.") "Size" sets the scale of the brush. And the "Flip Along" and "Flip Across" options set the orientation of the brush. (I've never felt the need to use any of these options.)  3. Finally, you'll want to set your colorization method. I usually set mine to "Tints & Shades," which allows the brush to accept any stroke color. The "None" option will prevent the brush from being colorized. "Tints" colorizes the brush but retains its original luminosity, which is good for creating dry appearances. And "Hue Shift" shifts the hue and also seems to adjust saturation upward for whatever reason.  And there you have your very first Art Brush. To use it, simply select the Paint Brush tool, choose your brush from the Brushes palette and draw a stroke. In my case, I have three new Art Brushes, including the versions of my nib I modified using the Symbol tools. (The example below shows the nibs and the resulting strokes.)  Prev 1 2 3 4 Next Related sites: • Creative Mac • Digital Media Designer • Digital Producer • The WWUG Related forums: [an error occurred while processing this directive] 
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