Hair Brushes

[lee_wilson@adobeforums.com]

Hi people, can anyone give me any tips for creating hair brushes?

I'm trying to create hair similar to these:

<http://www.illustratorworld.com/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=4441http>://www.illustratorworld.com/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=4431
<http://www.illustratorworld.com/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=4440>
<http://www.illustratorworld.com/cgi/database/art/view.pl?id=4131>
Thanks

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

They all appear to be traced in AI from photographic sources. The one in the London Metro appears also to be made of paths that has a custom brush applied.

[Teri Pettit]

Lee,

There is a Symbols library called Hair and Fur that ships with Illustrator. You could place an instance of a hair that you like, then rotate it so that it was horizontal or vertical, and then define an Art Brush from it.

Doing so will automatically break the link to the symbol, that is, redefining the symbol will not affect objects stroked with that brush.

If don't want the symbol art exactly as defined to become your brush, then you can do an explicit Break Link before defining the brush, in order to access the path for modification. One thing that can be handy for brushes used to draw hair is to put several strands of slightly different shades in one brush.