Take a paper drawing of a stroke. Scan the paper and import the image into Illustrator. Turn that image into a custom brush.
Author: jeff witchel
Jeff Witchel graduated from Pratt Institute in 1973 with a B.F.A. (Cum Laude) in Advertising Design and Visual Communications. He has been an award-winning advertising art director, writer, designer, illustrator, and TV producer ever since. Before starting his own advertising agency in New Jersey, Jeff built his career at top New York ad agencies such as Young & Rubicam, Grey Advertising, and Wells, Rich, Greene. Over the years, he has created award-winning work for many clients including AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Jell-O Pudding, The Plaza Hotel, and Pfizer. His many prestigious awards include N.Y. Art Directors Club Gold Award, One Show Gold Award, N.J. Art Directors Club Award, multiple Andy Awards, Graphis Annual, numerous readership awards, plus an Emmy Award nomination. Jeff is a self-taught computer artist with over 19 years of experience. His initial introduction to the computer was with PageMaker, but he switched to Quark 1.0 when it was first introduced in 1987. Having arrived on the desktop publishing scene so early, Jeff became the "go to" guy for answers when others started getting into computer graphics. As an Adobe Certified Expert, he's provided online support for Adobe and is now an Adobe Certified Training Provider for both Adobe Illustrator CS2 and Adobe InDesign CS2. Jeff is one of just a handful of Adobe Certified Instructors in the New York metropolitan area. He also is a Quark Certified Expert in QuarkXPress 6 as well as a master of Adobe Photoshop and related applications. He counts among his training clients ad agencies, design studios, magazines, illustrators, and photographers in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
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I don’t hear any audio.
There is no audio in here guys =|
I don’t hear any audio… Weird.
No sound on this video. Maybe its the wrong version?
hallelujah!!!!! They fixed the audio!!!!!!
Wouldn’t changing the blend mode to Multiply wipe out the white background anyway? Isn’t that an unnecessary step?
Why did he go the long route in deleting the white areas surrounding the charcol object? He could have just chose Tracing Options under Live trace and check the “Ignore White checkbox”
No I think his intention was to use Multiply to darken up the Art Brush a bit. Yes, it would also get rid of the white
He could have just chosen the Ignore White Checkbox under the Live Trace Tracing Options. That would have been a lot faster
No, you need to remove the white background. Just check the “Ignore white” in the Tracing Options. This is a faster than selecting the white and choosing Select > Same then deleting.
Hi Al,
You’re absolutely right! Multiply would get rid of the white background anyway without deleting it.
I only mentioned deleting the white background for instances when the Brush does not use Multiply.
Thanks for bringing this up.
Jeff
Hi All,
OK. There’s seems to be a lot of controversy about about deleting the white background. If you use, Multiply, it is not necessary to delete the white. White will have no effect on the objects beneath it. And even the lightest grays WILL slightly darken all that is beneath them. Perfect for making my “grease pencil” Brush.
Oh and you can also use ignore white in the Live Trace Options (Object>Live Trace>Tracing Options). In this particular case, it would NOT have worked anywhere near as well as applying the Multiply Mode. Why? The art had a lot of light grays in, which would NOT have been ignored. These grays would have remained gray on top on the red. The result is not very attractive!
Best,
Jeff
Hey its nice to clarify all the controversy related deleting white and using Live Tracing option,
good
can i save this video? please tell me how
Thank you Jeff. Not only do you give us tips on how to create new art brushes, but you explain some of options and how to use them properly.
[...] Custom Art Brush in Illustrator (video) [...]
Very helpful! I can use my Pitt Pens now when I ink in Illustrator.