First off I want to thank the Illustrator gurus grayehound and goodncrispy for all their help. I got to thinking, it would be awesome if there was a designer help page somewhere on this site since a ton of us seem to congregate here. So for now I submit this blog for anyone who has questions about doing things in Illustrator that they don't know how. There is such a combined knowledge of the program here that I'm sure any question can be answered (just as I've found out today).

First question: How do you make Illustrator sensitive to your wacom tablet pen?

grayehound, at 12:14pm on Nov 4, 2005
Rockslide, you first have to be using the brush tool. When you double-click on the brush in the tools pallette you can set how closely the line you draw matches what you really draw. You then hafta select a brush. I tend to go for one that's 3-5 pixels round. If yiu double-click the brush in the Brushes palette, you can set the Diameter setting to respond to Pressure. I'll usually set the variance to 3-4 pixels, so light pressuer makes thin lines and heavy pressure goes thick.

goodncrispy, at 12:20pm on Nov 4, 2005
Rockslide: to set the pressure sensitivity you must create or edit a calligraphic brush in the brush palette. In the dialogue you set the angle, roundness, and diameter. Next to the diameter setting is a variation setting. Set the pulldown to "pressure" and variation to something other than zero. As far as I know this doesn't work with the pattern brushes or the charcoal/ink/splatter etc brushes though. Also check your tablet settings (in system prefs for mac. Don't know windows..don't want to) to make sure that your tablet is (1) set for pressure sensitivity and (2) set to a firm enough pressure setting so that it can tell a light stroke from a heavy one.

I guess I still use the wacom mouse for web surfing since the 3rd and 4th buttons are so easy to use as back/forward buttons. But for everything else, the stylus is the way to go.

Question: How then do you create a shape from that unique pen stroke, the program won't let me choose "outline stroke"?

grayehound, at 12:56pm on Nov 4, 2005
I won't. You can outline any brush, but not with the usual "Outline stroke". You have to go to Object>Expand Appearance to outline the brush.

goodncrispy, at 1:02pm on Nov 4, 2005
I've found that outline stroke works well a lot of the time but can do some odd things as well. It seems a safer bet to go to "Object>flatten transparency" and only select "convert all strokes to outlines." I like that way more since you don't get extranious fills.

Thanks again guys for the help. I'll be posting more questions of my own as I run across them, I always have a ton.

Everyone else is free to post illustrator questions of their own and hopefully someone can answer them.