How to create your own brush in Illustrator
3. May 2009, 04:55
Tutorials
In this tutorial I will show you how simple is creating of a new Art Brush in Adobe Illustrator and how you can then use it for creating wonderful illustrations – like the attached floral women portrait. You can draw above mentioned image within few minutes – you just have to create the silhouette of the face and then prepare art brush an use it for hair.
So first of all you have to draw one runner:

Now just rotate it, so it is horizontal and then drag and drop it above the Brush palette (you can display this palette via Window / Brushes or with key F5).

From the displayed dialog you will choose New Art Brush and hit OK.

After that you will see the Brush options dialog:

I suggest you to change the Colorization method to Tints and Shades, it will enable you to easily change the color of the brush (but this you can do anytime later via this brush options dialog).
Now you have your own brush – use pencil or any other drawing tool and make same shape, line, circle, curve, select it and then click on your brush in the brush palette – your new brush should be applied on the strokes.
Here are some examples, where I used this brush (mentioned illustrations are selling quite well in microstock and generates me nice income, if you want to try it too – check my older article How to start selling photos and illustrations on microstock)




P.S. This was my first tutorial on my blog, what do you think about it – please answer my poll, or leave some comment. Thanks.
Comments
I loved the article. I especially liked the example illustrations you included showing complete work done using the brush you created. The tut was easy to follow. Thanks.
« May calendar for Smashing Magazine How to prepare vector illustration for microstock sale »
Best microstock sites
This list is sorted according to contributors - the most valuable sites first:
Read more info about those agencies.
Do you want to buy images?
Most popular articles
How to start selling photos and illustrations on microstock
The best microstock sites for selling photos, illustrations, footage, flash
Last 3 comments
My last tweets
- I forgot to publish my February #microstock earnings report. So here it is: http://ztuxm.xrt.me Mar 3rd
- Excellent tutorial about scripting in Adobe Illustrator: http://nwi3n.xrt.me I'm going to play with JavaScript in Illustrator. Feb 17th
- Congratulations @Shutterstock on your 10,000,000th image! Pick me for the iPad giveaway! http://bit.ly/ssipad Feb 16th
Book tips
Douglas Freer:Microstock Photography: How to Make Money from Your Digital Images
$20.35
- Free worldwide delivery)
- Dispatched within 24 hours
Useful tools
