Illustrator ® Brushes Collection / AI Brush Strokes

16,000 Illustrator ® brushes for CC CS6 - 10 (Illustrator 17 - 10), PC and MAC, Commercial use, royalty-free

Date updated: June 15th, 2013

Illustrator brushes

Do these brushes work in Illustrator CC - Creative Cloud ?

Yes, they work fine in the latest version of Illustrator - with the new creative cloud they are even more amazing. Of course, you might like to even check out our pattern and Photoshop brushes sets as the Illustrator CC new brush features (using images in brushes) means even those designs can be used in the brush strokes.

How to duplicate an Illustrator brush in CS4 CS5 CS6 CC etc

Really depends on what you mean by duplicate. If you have a design and you want to work out how to create a new brush based on an existing Photoshop or physical brush stroke, then perhaps a good way would be to use the image trace feature as well as a scanner - image trace with CS6 is now pretty impressive. Once you have the design traced, you can then simply drag the design into the brushes palette. If you mean, you just want to select an existing Illustrator brush and then duplicate it then the quickest way is to go to the brushes palette in Illustrator and then go to the right side menu and use the duplicate command. After that, you can then usefully modify the setting independently of the original source brush stroke

How to convert artistic brushes into scatter brushes in Illustrator?

Illustrator brushes are stored in AI format files.

 

Illustrator brushes are accessible only via the Illustrator brushes palette. If you want to create a permanent scatter or artistic form of the brush stroke then you have to open the source brushes file. If you make any modifications to the brush inside another document, the changes are only for that document (though you can always use the save command to save the document and brushes for future use in other artworks.

 

Once you have opened the brush file and have the Illustrator brushes available in the brush palette, select the artistic stroke and drag the brush from the palette onto the Illustrator artboard. If you now just go and select a fill from the color palette, the entire path will be filled with that fill as the 'entire group' that makes the brush will be filled with the same color and that would make a fairly useless brush. You must either double click the brush group and enter the isolation mode for the path and you can then select the individual paths and change the color and positions as well as add or remove paths; or you can use the object menu command and ungroup the brushes group removing the bounding box. Now you can change / modify the brush as it is just a standard path, one that can be modified in countless ways by the various path tools in Illustrator.

 

Once you have finished with any modifications of the brush design, drag the design back into the Illustrator brush palette and select a new brush type for the stroke such as artistic or pattern or scatter (which may or may not be the same as the original brush type).

 

You can, of course, keep the brush type the same and modify the settings (though a quicker alternative there would be to go to the brushes palette and select one of the brushes and use the duplicate command found on the right side of the brushes palette.)

 

How do I convert Illustrator brushes to another resource type (seamless tiles,) or to raster format

Open the source brushes file or open the brush library while editing another document. Select the brush design in the brushes palette and drag to the artboard. Go to the window menu and select one of the other resource palettes and then drag the brush design back into one of those instead of the brushes. You can then save the current document and use that as a source for the new design (as long as the document is saved as an AI format file). If you want to make some modifications to the brush path before saving it as a new tile then you will have to isolate the design (double click the brush on the artboard) and modify the color, exit the isolation mode, copy the design to the new palette.

 

You can also export the design to another application by using the various export command such as export to PNG or export to SWF (for Flash) or you can always use the good old pasteboard or clipboard by using the copy command. Saving the brushes to shapes should be fine, though it is not always as easy to do the reverse and create brushes from tiles as sometimes these contain elements that brushes cannot use and an error message will appear

 

How many types of Illustrator brushes can I create?

You can create calligraphic brushes, scatter brushes, artistic brushes, bristle brushes. All the brush design options have their own features, quality and options. Bristles strokes are more limited and offer a variety size / length / density / thickness but bristle brushes are great for more realistic strokes than earlier brush types. There are also blob brushes but the blob stroke is available via a separate icon in Illustrator and creates its own unique brush strokes.

 

 

Example above of an arrow brush in its path form. The Illustrator brushes can be used as brushes but they generally also be used as standard paths and to do this, just drag the brush from the palette to the Illustrator artboard. You will have to remove the bounding or defining box for the brush though and this is generally done by ungrouping the brush definition.

How to create comic book strokes?

My favorite way of using is either using the calligraphic (use an art pen and set pressure option) or the basic artistic strokes or using the blob vector stroke again with pressure settings added to the stroke. You can create stunning comic book / ink brush strokes in seconds. You might also like to check out other applications such Manga Studio for comic book art tools. The width profiles are also very useful in relation to comic book brush strokes

 

How can I modify the color of the Illustrator brushes ?

The Illustrator brushes stroke will take the current color of the stroke setting if the colorization method has been set to something other than 'none'. You can find out the colorization setting by clicking the Illustrator brush in the palette. If set to none, simply set the method to tint / tints and shade / hue shift. Sometimes a brush works best with a colorization of none. It really depends on what you want to achieve with the brush stroke.

 

example above shows multiple brush strokes 'sea burst'.

 

How can I apply the stroke to an Illustrator path?

Select an Illustrator path and then go to the palette (found in the window menu) and select a stroke. The design will then be applied to the path, though the result will depend on how complex the path design is.

 

How can I use an Illustrator brush stroke to create an edge effect?

You can always just apply the design in a general shape of an edge, perhaps repeat strokes or apply the in a single pass. You can also apply the brush stroke to a rectangular path or rounded path.

 

How can I apply Illustrator brushes to text / type?

Select the type tool in Illustrator, select the font and type the required text, expand the text via the object menu expand command and then apply the brush by by clicking the required brush stroke. The effect might require some modification as what works for a large path might not work for text paths (which can be quite complex). A slightly better way to apply brush strokes to text is to use the appearance palette as you can keep the text live. To achieve this go to the Illustrator appearance palette (with the path selected) and add a new stroke to the path, you can then add the brush stroke to this). At any point with the live text selected you can change the words. This approach can be used to create effect with whole paragraphs or a page of text.

 

How can I use the brush with width profiles in Illustrator?

The width profiles work well with the strokes. Apply the design and then go to the width profile dropdown (along the top bar of Illustrator) and select a width profile. The profile will change the artistic brush strokes in a variety of ways creating sharper or more surreal brush designs. You can also, once you have applied the width profile, modify the profile and the Illustrator brush stroke by using the width tool (shift + W). Use the width tool to distort or modify or straighten a stroke.

 

How to create a bigger Illustrator brush stroke?

The paths in Illustrator are vector designs so they can be small or big. One quick easy way to create a bigger stroke - without changing the stroke width - is simply to drag the stroke from the palette and re-scale the design and place the design back into the palette.

 

The 16,000 brushes collection comes with a huge range of different designs and these can be applied in millions of different ways. The example above is a selection of the same path / brush applied a few times to create a colorful splatter effect in seconds. The colors can then be further manipulated by the color guide palette or by other means.

 

How to add grain to a brush stroke?

You can always modify the brush stroke by dragging the design to the artboard and applying paths to the design using the pathfinder tool. Another way is to use the live effect 'glass' and the appearance palette. Select a brush stroke and then go to the distort menu and glass menu option and apply a distortion (at this point you can also use a map from Photoshop). The odd thing with the filter gallery plugin in Illustrator is that is does not allow for multiple filters to be added in a single dialog but a quick way around this, and a quick way to added many levels of distress effect to the stroke, is to use the duplicate effect command in the appearance palette and add more and more glass distortions to the design. The more you add, the more likely the re-draw of the stroke will be slower though.

 

Brush Direction of the Illustrator brushes

Modify stroke / direction and more via the Illustrator brush palette. To change the direction of the brushes, click the direction button in the brush palette. In some cases, there will be little actual displayed change -- though in some cases, the stroke will change radically. Experiment.

 

Modifying the Illustrator brush strokes

Modify the artwork stroke by expanding and re-saving as a new stroke to create unique designs

Layer Illustrator strokes

The Illustrator brushes can be applied but to create a 'realistic' brush stroke, you can also modify the transparency of the design and apply multiple strokes. Apply with different blending modes and different opacity settings to create realistic designs and illustrations

Layers and brushes

Use the strokes on layers and release brush strokes to layers for animation. If you wish to use the designs to create comic books then (you might prefer an application such as Manga Studio?) you might like to use layers. Using layers you can apply brush strokes to a sketch as well as finish layers, setting the sketch layers to invisible for final printing. You might like to apply a panel per layer or perhaps even a particular character or background to one layer and so on. Really depends on how you like to build up a page or illustration but brushes and layers are great in combination. There is also a useful select object menu command to select all objects (or brush strokes) on the current layer - though I must admit, I wish there were more layer / selection features available in Illustrator.

Illustrator Brushes and opacity

The Illustrator brushes can be applied using 100% but they can be applied using 40% opacity or 10% opacity. Use the paint tool at different opacities to create more realistic strokes.

 

1) Select brush

2) Set opacity via the top bar to 40%

3) Apply paint tool

4) Re-apply over and over, overlapping strokes

5) Creates marker / pencil like brush strokes

Does have a tendency to create a lot of paths and complexity though. You might like to group the brush paths together using the object menu command and group command enabling you to move the brush strokes as one. You can then apply various filters or warping tools to warp the entire brush set in one go.

As well as using opacity to create 'realistic' brush strokes, you can also go to the transparency palette and then set the brush strokes to different blending modes such as darken or difference to create even more brush stroke designs. Some settings work better than others when it comes to brushes and blending modes though.

Shapes and Illustrator

Drag a stroke from the palette (or apply the brush to a path) and then drag the path or design back into the shapes palette, a great way of creating a shapes collection. The brushes sets come with tools to convert a large selection of brushes to shapes.

 

The example above is one of the Illustrator brushes applied as a path. You can also use the designs as symbols and sources for seamless tiles / patterns as well as other resources in Illustrator

Warp and strokes and Illustrator brushes

Drag the stroke from the palette, apply warp tools to the stroke or perspective to modify the design. On completion, re-save as a new paint stroke.

Live Trace and Illustrator brushes

Use Illustrator brush stroke with live traced images to add a dash to any image

1) File menu and place command

2) Select image file

3) Click the live trace command (on selected image)

4) Use live trace or change settings as required

5) Click expand

6) Apply brush from palette (might require some changing of settings, tints as required such as changing the scattering settings, size, scattering, rotation - random as this will create a vast array of different designs even from a basic set of brushes)

Scripting and strokes

The Illustrator brushes can be accessed by scripts (Javascript or Visual Basic Scripts) but the range of Illustrator brushes settings is fairly limited and includes options such as apply the brushes to a path. You cannot modify the Illustrator brushes in scripts at present. If you want to find more about the scripting in Illustrator then I would suggest checking out the Adobe Illustrator SDK site as that includes all the Javascript commands and VB script commands.

Text and strokes

One thing I love to do is use text as a brush. Simply create some text and drag to the palette and save as scatter, doesn't work as artistic unless you convert the text using the create outlines or expand command.

1) Select the text tool

2) Set font

3) Set size

4) Set color of text

5) Apply

6) Object menu and expand

7) Save as artistic brush via brushes palette

8) Apply brush (perhaps setting tint settings as required)

Calligraphic and Illustrator brushes

The scatter / artistic strokes can use different sources for the brush stroke. The calligraphic brush tool cannot (sadly) but there are still many different uses for the calligraphic tool. I really love to use the calligraphic for my comics (I especially love to work in vectors for comics instead of the more traditional pencil artwork). You can change the angle, color, roundness, diameter of the calligraphic brush as well as adding in variation based on pressure if using an art pad, randomness, There are definitely not as many 'options' as the other brushes but they are definitely worth checking out. A couple of libraries come with Illustrator CS5 CS4 for starters. With the recent addition of the width tool in Illustrator CC CS6 CS5 you can modify the calligraphic brushes to even great effect either by using the width profiles or the width tool itself.

Illustrator Eraser tool

Must admit I never think of it as a brush but it is still a brush and it is a useful tool at times. Select a path and then apply the eraser tool to cut through a path such as a blob brush stroke. It also comes with virtually the same option set as the calligraphic tool, which clearly it is but in the 'negative'. It is a totally useless tool though if you have no paths in the document! Does require the path to be selected. I would love to see the eraser brush to be extended to be a variant of the scatter and artistic tool so you could erase using the realistic or surreal art designs. The other tools such as the smooth tool and pencil tool though in a sense are brushes, they are nothing like the scatter or calligraphic strokes.

Illustrator Width tool and brushes

The new Illustrator CS5 width tool brings yet another wow feature to Illustrator brushes strokes and you can apply the width profile / tool to the scatter as well as artistic and other brushes.

Illustrator CC CS6 brushes

There has been no noticeable change with the brushes with the latest version of Illustrator, CS6 (though the interface could be counted as a change, the actual brushes have no new settings)

 

The brush strokes can be used in conjunction with the new Illustrator tile editor. Use the brushes to create stunning new and original designs in seconds. You can use the Illustrator brushes as a source for new tiles simply dragging the brush stroke to the artboard and using the design with the object menu tile feature. You do not have to remove the bounding box. You can then manipulate the stroke as you would with any path such as rotate, change the size, add additional paths

 

The 16,000 set includes many different designs such as the above example, star. There are many different star designs included in the set and they can be applied in millions of different ways to create truly amazing images.

 

You can paint with any of the brush strokes while using the tile editor feature. The brush strokes are then captured and used in any saved tiles. You can use the native Illustrator brushes as well as any of the brushes in the brushes collection set. On saving the tile, you will see a dialog explaining that the brush strokes will be expanded (this does not affect the actual brush stroke just the design stored as a new tile) so click OK and save the tile for future use.

 

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Andrew Buckle, Abneil Software Ltd, Maidstone, Kent, United Kingdom. (+44) 622 688 375