If you have ever paid a visit to the Adobe Exchange online, you may have seen downloadable custom brush sets designed by other Illustrator users. These sets can be downloaded from the site and installed in Illustrator for your own personal use at no charge. Additional custom brushes can be found at a variety of other sites, some of which will be listed at the end of this tutorial. I recommend printing this article before you begin.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to install, select, and use custom brushes in Illustrator. The first thing to do, obviously, is to download the brush set that you wish to use. Make sure that the brushes you wish to download are compatible with your version of Illustrator. Choose an easy to locate place on your computer where you can save the file you will download. When you begin to download the file, a dialog box will ask if you wish to “save” or “open” the file. Choose “save”, and then choose the location you decided on. Download the file.
Once the file has downloaded, go to the place where the file was saved. Downloaded brush sets may come as a zipped file, which will have to be extracted before the brushes can be installed. Brush files are shown as Illustrator AI documents, and may also come with a “read-me” file or a picture showing the file’s contents. These brushes have to be installed manually, which can be a bit daunting for someone unaccustomed to “tampering” with a program’s files. Be certain that Illustrator is not running before you begin.
Go to the location where Illustrator’s program files are stored. The default location for this is C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator. Look for a folder called “Presets”, within which you will find a folder called “Brushes”. Open the brushes folder and you may see a few other files similar to the one you just downloaded. If you don’t, there’s no need to worry. Illustrator’s standard brushes are normally combined into a single file, which may not be visible. Copy the AI file you downloaded into the brushes folder, and you’re done. The next time you open Illustrator, the brushes you installed will be loaded.
Now for the fun. Open Illustrator and create a new document. Any type will do. Choose the “paintbrush” tool from the tool box to the left of the workspace. Then click on the “brushes” icon in the tool box to the right of the workspace. A dialog box will appear displaying the “brushes” tab. Choose the “Brush Libraries Menu” icon from the bottom of the dialog box. A menu will appear displaying a list of the available brush sets. Choose the name of the brush or set that you installed, and an additional box will appear displaying the brushes you selected. Choose the brush that you would like to use, and you’re ready to start drawing.
Using the brush tool is very similar to using the pencil or pen tool. Click on the document where you want the brush stroke to begin and, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the pointer across the document. When you let go of the mouse button, Illustrator will convert the line you drew into the chosen brush style. Custom brushes can be adjusted for color, stroke, and fill in the same way as Illustrator’s default brushes.
