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Make a Calligraphic Brush in Adobe Illustrator CS6

Edited by Freya, VisiHow, Eng

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Video: Make a Calligraphic Brush in Adobe Illustrator CS6

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You're watching VisiHow. In this tutorial, we're going to show you how to create a custom brush for line art in Adobe Illustrator CS6 in Windows 7.

Create a Calligraphic Brush on Adobe Illustrator CS6.mp4-canvas291 078873.jpg

Steps

1
To begin, open Adobe Illustrator from the desktop or click the Windows icon in the lower-left corner of the screen
.
Clicking the Windows icon will reveal a list of the most recently used programs. You may find Illustrator on this list. It can be identified by a brown-and-orange icon with the letters "Ai".

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2
Otherwise, click the search bar at the bottom of the start menu to type "Adobe Illustrator"
.

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3
Then click "Adobe Illustrator CS6" once to load it and go directly to the workspace
.
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4
Create a new document to work with
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Depending on how your workspace is set up, you may already see a panel with various icons on the right-hand side of your window. If you need help completing either of these two steps, please view our other Adobe Illustrator tutorials.

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5
Access your brushes by clicking the "Brushes" icon in the right-hand side panel
.
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6
Since you're creating a brush, click the "New Brush" square icon at the bottom of the "Brushes" menu
.

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7
In the "New Brush" window that appears, select the type of brush you want to create and then select "OK"
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For this tutorial, click "Calligraphic Brush", which is the first option. A larger dialogue box will appear in which we can choose the settings for the calligraphic brush.
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8
First, change the name by manually typing it in the "Name" text box at the top of the window
.
Let's type "Test Calligraphy".

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9
In the square box on the left-hand side, you can click and drag the black circles to adjust the brush
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You can make it more narrow or like a perfect circle. The rectangle on the right side shows a preview of your brush strokes.
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10
You can change the "Angle" value by moving the slider to the left or to the right
.
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11
You can also change the "Angle", "Roundness", and "Size" settings by manually typing numbers into the text boxes that are to the right of each slider
.
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12
There is also a slider to change the "Roundness" value of the brush
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It is not necessary to use the square box above to make this adjustment.
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13
You can also make your brush larger or smaller by changing the "Size" value
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You can change the size using the slider or the text box.
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14
To the right of each text box you can click a drop-down menu
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The options shown will be "Fixed" and "Random". If you click the "Random" option, the angle may change depending on what kind of brush stroke you are creating.
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15
When you have finished with the settings panel, click "OK"
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You can see that your brush has been added to the "Brushes" menu as "Test Calligraphy".
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16
Next, select a stroke color for your brush
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For an explanation of how to select colors for drawing tools, please view our other tutorials.
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17
After a color has been selected, click the "Paintbrush Tool"
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Now, you are ready to begin drawing.
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18
If you would like to edit your brush, double-click the "Test Calligraphy" brush in the "Brushes" menu
.
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19
Then, update your settings and click "OK"
.
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20
Then, click "Leave Strokes"
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The brush looks authentic when you use it. You can write calligraphic letters with it.
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This is a VisiHow tutorial. I've just shown you how to create a calligraphic brush in Adobe Illustrator CS6 in Windows 7. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section below. Thank you for watching VisiHow!