Brushes

Illustrator includes four kinds of brushes, all applied in the same way. The traditional way to apply a brush in Illustrator is to use the Paintbrush tool, which works similarly to the Pencil tool, although instead of just drawing a plain stroked path, the Paintbrush tool applies one of the four kinds of brushes.

Brushes are stored in the Brushes palette (see Figure 7.92), and the truth is that you don't need to use the Paintbrush tool to apply a brush at all. That's because you can select an existing object and click on any brush in the Brushes palette to apply that brush stroke to the selected path. Of course, the Brush tool makes it easier to create more artistic brush strokes, but as you'll soon see, certain kinds of brushes don't require that kind of artistic touch.

Figure 7.92. The Brushes palette.

Did you Know?

Illustrator CS2 ships with predefined brushes that you can use. From the Brushes palette flyout menu, choose Open Brush Library to see a list of brush libraries.

Calligraphic Brushes

The first kind of brush is the Calligraphic brush. A calligraphy pen has an angled tip, or nib, which, when used to draw or write, creates a tapered line that gets thicker or thinner, depending on the angle and direction of the stroke. The Calligraphic brush simulates this effect (see Figure 7.93).

Figure 7.93. An example of the kind of art the Calligraphic brush can create.

Did you Know?

Illustrator CS2 supports the Wacom 6D pen that works with the Intuos3 line of tablets. Using the 6D pen enables you to capture barrel, bearing, and rotation movements of the pen to affect the outcome of your brush stroke.

To create a new Calligraphic brush, click on the New Brush icon in the Brushes palette and choose New Calligraphic Brush (see Figure 7.94) to get the Calligraphic Brush Options dialog box (see Figure 7.95).

Figure 7.94. Choosing to create a new Calligraphic brush.

Figure 7.95. The Calligraphic Brush Options dialog box.

In the Calligraphic Brush Options dialog box, you can specify the following settings:

At the top of the box, you can specify a name for the brush.
Directly under the name is a white box with a picture of an ellipse with an arrow going through it and two black dots on either side. This is the Brush Shape Editor. Simply click and drag on the arrow to rotate the brush shape and adjust its angle. Click and drag inward on the black dots to adjust the roundness of the brush shape.
To the immediate right of the Brush Shape Editor is an area that shows you a preview of your brush shape. Notice the three shapes, of which the outer two are grayed out and the center one is black. If you have variations set (see the next bullet item), the gray shapes illustrate the minimum and maximum values for the brush shape.
You can also specify these values numerically at the bottom of the dialog box. Each option can also have one of three attributes: Random, in which Illustrator randomly changes the setting; Pressure, which enables you to determine how hard you press with a pressure-sensitive pen and tablet; and Fixed, which assigns a constant value that you define. Random and Pressure settings also allow for a variation setting.

Scatter Brushes

The Scatter brush distributes predefined art along the path you draw with the Paintbrush tool (see Figure 7.96). To define a new Scatter brush, you have to start with a piece of art. When you've created the art you want to use for the brush, select the art and drag it into the Brushes palette. When the New Brush dialog box appears asking what kind of brush you want to create, choose New Scatter brush and click OK.

Figure 7.96. An example of the kind of art the Scatter brush can create.

Illustrator then opens the Scatter Brush Options dialog box, where you can specify the behavior of the new Scatter brush (see Figure 7.97).

Figure 7.97. The Scatter Brush Options dialog box.

In the Scatter Brush Options dialog box, you can specify the following settings:

At the top of the box, you can specify a name for the brush.
Directly under the name are four options for which you can enter numerical values to specify the size of the art when it's drawn on the path; the spacing between the art as it appears on the path; the scatter, which defines how far from the path the art can stray; and, finally, the rotation, which specifies the rotation of each individual piece of art on the path. You can set the rotation to be relative to the page or to the actual path itself. For each of these four settings, you can specify Fixed, Random, or Pressure, just as you could for the Calligraphic brushes. The Pressure option works only if you are using a pressure-sensitive tablet, such as a Wacom tablet.
The final option for the Scatter brush is Colorization. This option enables you to specify color changes to the art that appears on your painted strokes. Choosing None keeps the color consistent with the original color defined with the brush you have selected. To use the Hue Shift option, click the Eyedropper box, and click to choose a color from the art that appears in the box to the right. This procedure works on colored objects only, not black-and-white objects. Clicking the Tips button can help you see how the color changes are applied.

If you're thinking that the Scatter brush seems similar to the brushes you created in Photoshop, you're absolutely right. As you'll see later in this chapter, there's another feature in Illustrator, the Symbol Sprayer tool, that can create art that looks similar to the Scatter brush, except that it's a lot more powerful.

Art Brushes

The Art brush differs from the Scatter brush, in that the Art brush stretches a single piece of predefined art along a path (see Figure 7.98), whereas the Scatter brush litters the path with many copies of the art. To define a new Art brush, you have to start with a piece of art. After you've created the art you want to use for the brush, select the art and drag it into the Brushes palette. When the New Brush dialog box appears asking what kind of brush you want to create, choose New Art Brush and click OK.

Figure 7.98. An example of the kind of art the Art brush can create.

Illustrator then opens the Art Brush Options dialog box, where you can specify the behavior of the new Art brush (see Figure 7.99).

Figure 7.99. The Art Brush Options dialog box.

In the Art Brush Options dialog box, you can specify the following settings:

At the top of the box, you can specify a name for the brush.
Directly under the name is a white box with the art in it. Notice that an arrow goes through the art. This arrow indicates the direction the art is drawn on the path; you can edit it by clicking any of the arrows that appear to the right of the white box.
Below the Direction option is the Size option, in which you can specify what size the art appears on the painted path. If you select the Proportional option, the artwork retains is height-to-width relationship for the length of the stroke. You can also specify whether the art should be flipped along or across the painted path.
The final option for the Art brush is Colorization, which functions exactly like the Scatter brush does, as described earlier.

Pattern Brushes

Apparently, three kinds of brushes in Illustrator just weren't enough for the engineers over at Adobe, so they added a fourtharguably the most powerful of the bunch. The Pattern brush applies patterns across a painted path (see Figure 7.100). What makes this different from any brush until this point is that you can define patterns with different attributes for corners and ends. We covered how to create patterns earlier in the chapter; when you have your patterns listed in your Swatches palette, you can define a Pattern brush by clicking on the New Brush icon in the Brushes palette and choosing New Pattern Brush.

Figure 7.100. An example of the kind of art the Pattern brush can create.

Illustrator then opens the Pattern Brush Options dialog box, where you can specify the behavior of the new Art brush (see Figure 7.101).

Figure 7.101. The Pattern Brush Options dialog box.

In the Pattern Brush Options dialog box, you can specify the following settings:

At the top of the box, you can specify a name for the brush.
Directly under the name are five boxes, each representing a different tile of the pattern: Side, Outer Corner, Inner Corner, Start, and End. You do not need to define all five parts, and Illustrator uses the parts only when necessary. With a tile section selected, choose a pattern from the list that appears directly under the tiles.
As with the previous brushes, you can specify Scale and Spacing, as well as specify whether the pattern should be flipped along or across the path.
With the Pattern brush, you can decide how Illustrator fits the pattern to the path. Obviously, not every pattern will fit every path length perfectly. If you select Stretch to Fit, Illustrator stretches the pattern tiles to make the pattern fit seamlessly across the entire painted path. If you select Add Space to Fit, Illustrator does not adjust the size of the pattern tiles, but spaces them evenly across the painted stroke. Finally, the Approximate Path option adjusts the size of the path itself to fit the size of the pattern tiles.
The final option for the Art brush is Colorization, which functions exactly like the Scatter and Art brushes do, as described earlier.

In closing, if you find it hard to tell what type each brush is just by looking at the Brushes palette, you can opt to view the brushes by name. Choose View by Name from the Brushes palette flyout menu, and you'll notice that on the far right of each brush listing, there's an icon that indicates what kind of brush each one is (see Figure 7.102).