Working with Brushes
A brush carries a nib along a path. Its visible width changes with the path's direction relative to that nib, which makes it useful for broad-nib lettering, scripts, and other calligraphic forms. Keep the brush live when you want to revise the path or pen shape after drawing.
Drawing with the Brush
The Brush tool uses an elliptical nib. A narrow ellipse produces contrast between movements across its broad dimension and movements along its narrow dimension. Rotating the nib changes the direction of that contrast. A circular nib produces even thickness regardless of angle.
Press B or click the Brush tool. Double-click its toolbar icon to open the toolbox and choose the drawing mode. Repeated presses of B cycle through the brush sub-tools; holding B gives temporary access and returns to the previous tool when released.
The Brush toolbox distinguishes its drawing variants; the highlighted option shows the active mode.
Simple brush
The Simple brush turns each drawing gesture into an ordinary outline. Choose the nib settings before drawing, drag the stroke, then edit its resulting contours with the Contour tool.
Changing the Brush panel afterward does not change that completed outline's nib. Use this mode when you want the gesture committed immediately and intend to refine the edges directly.
Power Brush
The Power Brush drawing mode retains a skeleton and generates its outline through a live filter. Draw the path, then edit the skeleton with the Contour tool or change the brush settings to revise the result.
Each drawn Power Brush stroke has its own element, so separate strokes can have different settings and transformations. Make the intended stroke current before changing its size or angle.
To apply a brush to an existing element, choose Element > Brush & Stroke > Make Power Brush. That applies the construction to the element's contours. Separate contours into different elements first if they need independent element-wide brush settings.
A practical starting workflow is:
- Choose Power Brush in the toolbox.
- In Window > Panels > Brush, set roundness to 25% and angle to 45° for a visibly narrow, angled nib. Choose a size near a stem width in your design.
- Draw a straight stroke and a curved stroke to inspect how the nib responds to direction.
- Make one stroke current, edit its skeleton, then adjust size and angle while comparing the generated shape. Repeat with the other stroke.
- Keep the live construction or expand it when direct outline editing becomes more useful.
Use Element > Expand Filters, or the Brush panel's expand control, to produce ordinary contours. Use the panel's apply/remove control or Element > Remove Filter to remove the brush construction and retain its source. The native working file preserves a live Power Brush; production export resolves the outline needed by the output format.
Erasing and smoothing
The Erasing brush removes painted areas from existing closed contours. Use it to shave or cut away a region with a freehand gesture. It changes the affected geometry, so inspect the contour result and use Undo if the cut removes more than intended. It is not a live white brush stroke that you can later reposition as a cutter.
The Soft option adds inertia to the drawing gesture. It smooths small hand movements and helps you draw steadier paths with the brush modes. Try it on the same curve with and without smoothing; use the setting that follows the movement you intend.
Choose stroke or brush
Use a brush when the nib's angle should determine the contrast. A broad-nib or script form often benefits from this direct relationship between the drawing movement and the generated ink.
Use a stroke when you need even weight, independent control of its two sides, or the wider choice of caps and joins; brushes have fewer cap options. Local stroke modulation can vary the weight, but it does not automatically reproduce an angled nib's calligraphic behavior.
The editing choice is separate: a Simple brush commits the gesture, a simple stroke remains an adjustable property, and the Power variants retain live constructions. Power Stroke's virtual output is not an attachment surface for Skin or Glue; plan the order of those constructions or expand a copy when you need real output contours.
For a variable design, inspect the generated geometry. Brush expansion can change node structure as the path or nib changes. Stroke output also depends on caps, joins, and intersections. Neither technique alone guarantees compatible outlines across masters.
Configuring the Brush
Open Window > Panels > Brush, or double-click the brush preview in the property bar. The panel configures the drawing nib and the active Power Brush element.
Set the nib's shape and size
The tip diagram shows the ellipse. Drag its angle control to rotate the nib and its roundness control to change the ratio between the ellipse's axes. Roundness is shown as a percentage: 100% is circular; lower values give a narrower ellipse and stronger directional contrast.
Angle rotates the contrast; it does not switch contrast off at 0°. Only a circular tip has the same geometric thickness in every direction.
Set the size numerically or with the slider. The predefined-size menu also offers values based on the font's stem settings. Use a stem-based value as a starting point when you want a brushed form to relate to existing letters, then compare the resulting ink rather than assuming that the number alone establishes optical consistency.
With a Power Brush element current, size changes update that element. When preparing a new Simple brush gesture, the settings determine the outline that will be drawn next.
Enable Pressure-sensitive when drawing with a device that supplies stylus pressure and you want pressure to modulate thickness. Turn it off when you want the chosen profile to behave independently of hand pressure. Test the response with a short stroke before drawing a larger piece.
Shape the profile and terminals
The modulation preview supplies five positions along the stroke. Their values are percentages of the brush's maximum size. Raise or lower the controls to make the profile swell, taper, or remain uniform. A uniform profile keeps all positions at 100%.
The Brush panel combines the brush profile with controls for its shape along the stroke.
The endpoint controls also select terminal styles. Click them to cycle among round, butt, and projected ends. A butt end stops at the skeleton endpoint; a projected end extends beyond it; a round end finishes with a curve. Compare the visible terminal with the underlying endpoint when matching neighboring strokes.
The profile describes the brush configuration. Local nib edits on an existing Power Brush can further change size, roundness, or angle at individual skeleton nodes. The Thickness tool workflow in The Thickness Tool teaches these local overrides; inspect them when a stroke differs from the panel's global nib.
Keep reusable brush settings
Use Add brush in the collection to store the current configuration, then click a stored preview to load it again. Remove brush removes the selected preset from the collection.
The brush chooser previews different brush shapes and widths before you draw.
The collection menu provides Save List, Load List, and Reset List. Save the collection before replacing it with a loaded list or restoring the defaults if you want to retain your custom presets.
A preset is a convenient way to reuse settings. It is not a shared source drawing that automatically updates all previously drawn Simple brush outlines when the preset changes.