Combining Art Brushes and Width Tool

[saberbe]

Hello

I was hoping to quickly create a pattern to be used as texture for a snake.

I created the pattern and turned it into an Art Brush. Then I applied the Art Brush to a line; works perfectly.

Then I hoped to just use the Width Tool in order to adjust the pattern to go smaller or wider in certain areas; total fail.

You can see what I mean in the image below.

Any ideas on how to solve this?

Thanks a bunch!

[Monika Gause]

Did you outline the strokes before creating the brush?

[saberbe]

No because I dont want to vary the line width

[saberbe]

I do get somewhere expanding the brush and the using the Warp Tool to shift it in place. But then I use the mathematical feel it has now because lines get jagged a bit.

[Monika Gause]

It makes totally sense to have live strokes in brushes. But it breaks when you do exactly this (applying variable width)

[saberbe]

So I just tested with expand strokes -although I would want the same stroke width- and it is less bad. But I have to drag the stroke width to about 1000% of what it actually is when released.

[Doug A Roberts]

Hi, I got some rather confusing results from an art brush with the width tool, but nothing quite like yours. However, I had a good result with a pattern brush (on the left), so perhaps you could try that:

The width controls work fine for other art brushes though. I'm not sure what goes wrong with this particular one.

[Doug A Roberts]

Aha, I see what the issue is after seeing Monika's post.

[Mike_Gondek]

 

 

Had same resutls as Doug with width profile going all distorted and hard to adjsut once on the snaek mesh. Instead I saved a profile, then applied the profiuel to the snake  mesh.

For the rounded head you may have to use a mask.

[Mike_Gondek]

Try saving a variable width profile, then applying the porfile. 

[Doug A Roberts]

Good idea there Mike

[saberbe]

your result seems to be exactly what I need indeed. Would you care to elaborate on how to achieve it? I cant find where to set this kind of profile...

[Doug A Roberts]

At the bottom of the stroke window you'll find the width profile presets. See Mike's first screenshot above. You first use the width tool on a stroke and then save it there.

[saberbe]

Thanks all for the great tips, I'm suprised by how quick the qualitative input arrived.

For future reference; I did get the best result using these steps;

1. create the variable width stroke (width tool) first with a solid stroke
2. save the variable width as a variable width profile (bottom of stroke panel)
3. create a long art brush (rather than a pattern brush; the pattern brush is easier to manipulate, but leaves unwanted gaps)
4. apply the art brush to the stroke
5. apply the previously saved variable width profile

The result is a mathematically looking pattern width a consistent stroke width (because strokes werent expanded)

[Doug A Roberts]

If you're seeing unwanted gaps in a pattern brush, you probably don't have a no stroke/fill path included to define the pattern boundaries.