Jump to my blog for massive Illustrator tips from Threadless' finest designers.

BTW I 5'd that sub of yours! Truly amazing!

I don't know much about illustrator brushes.. but boy "Trojan Hearse" is an amazing/incredible design using a limited color palette.

thanks guys! just looking to save myself some effort and speed up my flow.

Here it is. Let's keep this blog alive and useful for everyone's sake.

that thread is great.
but i guess my question is this:
is there a way in illustrator to brush/paint with vector shapes rather than paths?

you can make your own brushes if you need, but im really not 100% sure what youre asking

.... oh wait i think i get you

basically you need to draw what you want then EXPAND it all before you out put it to print, this is a standard in all print files because resizing can alter the stroke side (or not) which can be a problem if someone touches your file.

You can also use the pencil tool to draw the outside of a shape and link it up.

Use the Brush tool (but you can achieve irregular thickness of brush strokes with the use of a pen tablet due to its pen pressure setting)

yeah but the brush tool creates paths kaloyster
in order to convert them to shapes you need to expand it.

Oh yeah, that also is needed.

The Expand thing is needed to be able to keep the thickness of the stroke, right Matt?

yeah

in your transform tool there is an option to resize the stroke as well, but if someone edits your work and doesnt make sure it resizes proportionately with the rest of the design you can end up with really thin or fat strokes compared to the rest.

That's why expanding is a pretty good idea, that way you avoid all those problems.

all good and true, but expanding the stroke all the times gets to be a hassle, and it breaks it up into a path and a shape.
i guess i want to be able to draw like flash in illustrator, (i'm greedy, i know.)

i know exactly what you're asking and would like to know how to do it to. Sorry I;m no help here :/

actually i think i now know what you're talking about and you can draw in illustrator with variable brush strokes. just create your own brush stroke and alter the settings to include a pressure value for your wacom. that way you can vary the stroke width depending on the pressure you apply on the tablet.

The only problem I'm dealing with AI is when my design (particularly the re-route one) has so many details, when I convert them to swf, the filesize is so big so I needed to reduce the size of the image on the template. :( Anyone knows how to make it smaller in filesize (*.swf)?

lol, eskimokiss - i think you probably had it right before.
its hard to explain if you're not so familiar with the way the brush tool in flash works, but it sees your brush stroke as a shape without you having to expand the stroke.
i love illustrator, but i want the one thing it can't do!

well kaloyster i only ever save as flash if the design is simply not visible enough as a gif, aka what i did with particleman.

this sounds roundabout i know, but try exporting it as a swf from illustrator, importing it into flash, and then publishing/exporting as a swf again.
nobody knows swfs like flash

bump.

i didnt know you guys were exporting as an swf from illustrator in the first place, thats some dodgy shit right there =)

the only reason you'd do it is to take it into flash. its the most reliable way to switch between the two (i think- shit, now you got me worried!)

Expanding a brush stroke can be a pain in the ass because it keeps the inner path of the shape for some reason. I only expand actual shapes when I've used the pathfinder.

A better way to turn a brush stroke into a true shape is to select your stroke, go to OBJECT-FLATTEN TRANSPARANCY (and make sure your preset is selected at High Res). Your stroke becomes a true shape.

Yeah I export it to swf from Illustrator. But the bad news is I uninstall my Macromedia Flash MX software and I'm a lazy-ass mofo to re-install it.

But g-regulate, is that proven to lighten the filesize? If so then I need to search from tons-o-cds for that Flash MX.

Hi mezo! :)

why don't you just expand and delete the inner path?

But exporting it from AI to swf, then Importing the swf to Macromedia Flash shows up the boxes underneath the Mask? Is there a way to totally flatten the design on AI (not just to group them)?

i've also been searching for the same thing g... no luck. importing back and forth from illustrator to flash distorts paths and colors, and expanding within illustrator (and deleting the inner path) is not the same as flash-brushwork (it does not create a "closed path", that is, without intersections where possible... A solution to this problem would greatly improve workflow. Also (this is basically the same thing) I would like to be able to "paint on" an existing illustrator object so that they automatically converge - as in flash - to create a bigger object (just like painting in photoshop).