Drawing Comics

[Butch_Liebscher@adobeforums.com]

I just picked up a Wacom tablet for an online comic book I'm working on. I'm trying to figure out how to set a brush in Illustrator to give me thick and thin lines based on the pressure of my stylus to mimic the ink lines of my original drawing. I set the pressure in the Wacom control panels, and have tried all sorts of combinations in the calligraphic brush options....any help would be appreciated!

butch

[Doug_Katz@adobeforums.com]

Make a new calligraphic brush. At the base of the new call. brush dialog, change
your Diameter setting from Fixed to Pressure. Adjust diameter (size) and variation.

[Aongus_Collins@adobeforums.com]

I have found Illustrator's art brushes more flexible and controllable than strokes that depend on Wacom pressure-sensitivity.

1. Scan some straight ink lines drawn with traditional media, and place the scan in an Illustrator document.
2. Trace using the pen tool, and give each object a black fill with no stroke.
3. Drag a traced line to the Brushes palette to create a new art brush.

You can then draw with the pencil or pen tool, and apply a brush to your lines. A big advantage is that you can try different brushes on different lines until you get the look you want.

The effect varies a lot, depending on the length of the lines. I make several brushes: one brush for long lines, another for short lines and so on.

You will probably need to experiment, and in particular adjust the brush width (double-click a brush in the palette to change this). But doing this will change the appearance of ALL lines using the selected brush. If you want to change one only line, leaving the remaining artwork untouched, select that line and choose "Options of Selected Object" from the brush palette pop-up menu.