This content has been marked as final. Show 2 replies
> How on earth are these created so neatly and perfectly? Are there more brushes
> one can download for Freehand because the library of brushes now is soooooo
> limited. What am I missing...please help...
Create your own custom brushes. Create a shape(s) you want to use like a wedge for a tapered stroke and conver to symbol. After applying a brush select new from the options and us your new symbol. There are a lot os options how the symbol will behave.
In general Brush is nothing more than a symbol with a control curve or spline.
In addition to creating your own brushes, which is very useful, you can
create graceful tendrils and spirals several ways in FreeHand.
Use the Spiral tool as a starting point. Apply a tapered brush stroke.
Another method that creates even nicer spirals is to use power duplicate.
Use this method to create a series of small paths to join into a single
path. Here's an old tip of mine here that shows how to power-duplicate
I wrote this before FH offered the Transform Effect, but you can do the same
by combining rotate, move, scale and copy commands. Here's an example to get
1. Draw a vertical line 10 points long. Leave selected
2. Object Panel>Effects>Transform.
Add all of these transformation within the same Transform Effect:
Scale 101% uniform
Rotate 8 degrees
Move x:0, y:-8
Center x:13.21, y:4.596
(Hint: When you have a spiral you like, highlight Effect: Transform in the
Object Panel and make a Style which you can apply to other objects.)
3. When you have a smooth spiral, Separate Attributes.
4. Ungroup and Join.
5. Simplify path.
6. Apply a wedge-shaped brush stroke.
If you apply the spiral Transform Effect to a slightly tapered rectangle and
ensure that all the copies overlap smoothly, you won't need a brush stroke.