Illustrator CS4 For Dummies- P5

Illustrator CS4 For Dummies- P5: Adobe Illustrator is the gold standard for creating exciting, color-rich artwork for print, the Web, or even mobile devices. Whether you’re stepping up to Illustrator CS4 or tackling Illustrator for the first time, you’ll find Illustrator CS4 For Dummies is the perfect partner. This full-color guide gives you the scoop on the newest tools, tips on color control and path editing, ways to organize graphics, and how to get your work into print or on the Web.
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Illustrator CS4 For Dummies- P5 Chapter 9: Creating Magnificent Brushstrokes 181uses different artwork at corners,testing the shape on an object thathas corners (such as a rectangle)is helpful. In this example, I use theRectangle tool to create a square.With the new brush still selected,I choose the Pen tool and create abasic shape. This procedure showshow the corner and side tiles look onstraight lines. Testing this way (as Idid in Figure 9-19) gives you a goodidea of whether all your artwork isworking well in the new brush.If any of your tiles aren’t working,tweak the original artwork, select it,and drag it back to the appropriate Figure 9-19: The new Pattern brush shown on aslot. path.Calligraphic brushes for formal occasionsCalligraphic brushes create strokesthat emulate the kinds of strokesyou make with real calligraphicpens; the strokes they make vary inwidth depending on the directionof the stroke. As the only brushesthat aren’t created by paths thatyou can drag into the Brushes panel,Calligraphic brushes are the noncon-formist brushes in Illustrator. Youset them up by using controls in the Figure 9-20: The Calligraphic Brush OptionsCalligraphic Brush Options dialog dialog box.box (accessed by either creating anew brush or by double-clicking on an existing Calligraphic brush), as shownin Figure 9-20.Although calligraphic brushes are deceptively simple, don’t let the namefool you. You can use them to create any type of artwork — not justcalligraphy — and they’re especially good for emulating traditional penand ink–type drawings.Yep, the Calligraphic Brush tool seems a lot more like a real pen than thepowerful-but-weird Pen tool. It may help to think of it this way: Calligraphy isan art practiced with brushes.182 Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork To create a Calligraphic brush, just follow these steps: 1. Click the New Brush icon (it looks like a tiny piece of paper) in the Brushes panel. The New Brush dialog box appears. 2. In the New Brush dialog box, select the New Calligraphic Brush option and then click OK. The Calligraphic Brush Options dialog box appears; refer to Figure 9-20. Although it might look intimidating, you have only the following three options to set (after you name the brush): • Angle: If you were using a real-world brush (or pen, as the case may be), this setting would be the angle at which you’d be tilting the brush. • Roundness: This setting enables you to change just how round the brush is — from a narrow ellipse to a circle. • Diameter: This setting determines how large the brush is. The boxes in the middle column determine how (and by how much) those first three options may vary, if at all. Select one of three options in these drop-down list boxes to determine whether the preceding three options may vary not at all (Fixed), randomly (Random), or according to the amount of pressure you apply by using a pressure-sensitive stylus (Pressure). The boxes in the third column enable you to set the amount by which those first three options may vary (if the method by which they may vary is either Random or Pressure). The higher the numbers, the greater the range of sizes the brush will produce. Figure 9-21 shows the same pattern using different calligraphic brushes. 3. After you set your options, click OK. The new Calligraphic brush appears in the Brushes panel for you to use. As you begin creating artwork with brushes, you discover that it’s just like painting with real paintbrushes — the best artwork requires a combination of several different brushes. Fortunately, you have an astonishing variety of brushes to choose from! The most well-stocked art supply store pales in com- parison to the Brushes panel. Best of all, you don’t have to pay extra when- ever you need a new brush. You can just build your own! Chapter 9: Creating Magnificent Brushstrokes 183Figure 9-21: The same spiral with different Calligraphic brushes applied to it.184 Part II: Drawing and Coloring Your Artwork 10 Extreme Fills and StrokesIn This Chapter▶ Creating tone and shading using the Mesh tool▶ Making artwork partially transparent▶ Blending artwork▶ Stroking your way to victory over drab art▶ Creating custom strokes▶ Using masks to hide objects with other objects T o say that in Illustrator, you can create just about anything you can imag- ine isn’t an overstatement. The trick is to know which buttons to push to make your artistic vision become an Illustrator document. This chapter pushes fills and strokes to their limits, showing you how you too can create cool stuff. You know — the stuff that makes you scratch your head and say, “How did they do that?” And then you wonder whether you’ll ever be able to create anything as artistic. Well, it isn’t so hard. You just need to use some of the more arcane Illustrator tools (the Mesh tool, for example) an ...