- [Instructor] In this movie,
I'll show you how to expand an art brush
in order to convert it into a static path outline,
which is something that you can do
with any kind of brush in Illustrator,
and that will allow us to fill what was formerly
an art brush with a tile pattern,
which is not something you can otherwise do,
and then we can turn around and stroke those shapes
with yet another art brush.
And if this sounds a little bit obscure,
I'm just trying to make sure that you know
exactly what your options are from one moment to the next.
Alright, so notice these guys right here,
this little path outline up here
at the top of the artwork, and this one down here below.
Currently they're just stroked
with one point white outlines.
What I'm going to do is take both of them
and then bring up the Brushes panel right here
and drop down to this guy.
It's called floral bulbs and generally speaking,
it's not necessarily that exciting,
except when you apply it to curving path outlines,
like the ones we have here.
Alright, now I quite like this effect.
Notice that we have a total of five pieces
to each one of these brush strokes,
but I would like them to be a little thicker,
so I'm going to take the line weight here
up to one point two, bearing in mind
that applying a line weight of one point two
to an art brush is the same as increasing its thickness
to 120%, at which point we get this effect right here.
Now notice that we have horizontal symmetry
where both of these shapes are concerned,
but we don't have vertical,
so notice that this guy right here
is located at the bottom of its path outline,
but it's bending down, so it's essentially concave,
where this one is flattened at the top.
And also this path right there
is enclosed by the one below it,
whereas that's not the case down here
at the bottom of the artwork.
So if we want vertical symmetry,
we're going to have to make a small change.
I'll go ahead and shift click on this top path
to deselect it, and then I'll click on this
inside the Appearance panel
that represents the floral bulbs,
and then I'll click on it, and notice
that even this little panel right here
has a dialogue box option
that allows you to modify the brush
as it's applied to this specific path outline,
and so I'll go ahead and turn on the preview check box.
Notice that you have these two flip options.
You can try out Flip Line,
but that's just going to flip this particular item
horizontally, which is not going to do you any good,
so go ahead and turn that check box off
and turn on Flip Across,
which gets us exactly the effect that we're looking for,
at which point I'll click OK to accept that change.
So you see what I mean?
Now we have true vertical symmetry
with this guy bending downward
just as this one bends upward,
and these two C's right here both facing inward,
are surrounded by their larger segments.
Alright, now what I want to do is
I want to take these items right here,
and I'll go ahead and shift click on this one
to select it as well, and I want to fill them
with that same tile pattern that's
at work in the background,
but if I click on the white stroke,
up here in the control panel,
and select that denim pattern, it doesn't work.
Notice that we get completely the wrong effect,
and that's because patterns are not compatible
with art brushes,
so what we need to do is just undo that step
and expand the art brushes to turn them into
full fledged static path outlines.
Generally I might suggest you duplicate these paths
in order to protect the originals,
but right now I feel like living dangerously,
so I'm just going to go up to the Object menu
and choose Expand Appearance, or again you have
that masher fist right bracket keyboard shortcut,
if you loaded D keys, in which case you're going
to get this effect right here.
Alright, now I want to be able
to fill all of these path outlines
with a continuous pattern,
and so things are going to work better
if we convert this thing to a compound path.
Right now, it's a group,
as we can see over here on the far left side
of the control panel,
and so the first thing you need to do
is go to the Object menu and choose Ungroup,
or you have that shortcut of control shift G,
or command shift G on the Mac,
and then once you see that everything is a static path,
as indicated by the word path
on the far left side of the control panel,
then return to the Object menu,
choose Compound Path, and choose Make,
or you have that shortcut of control eight
or command eight on a Mac.
Alright, now what we can do is change the fill,
so the first swatch up here in the control panel,
to that tile pattern.
Once again, it's called denim,
if you're working inside this document.
Now notice that the pattern is transparent,
so we need to put something behind it.
By returning to the Appearance panel
and clicking on the add new fill icon,
down here in the bottom left corner of the panel,
and I'll take this new fill and move it in back
of the pattern, and even though it doesn't look
any different, it is different,
so what we want to do is click on a swatch right there
and change it to this bluish shade of green,
is what I came up with,
the one that begins R equals 34,
at which point we come up with this effect here.
Now you may recall that we need to scale
and rotate the pattern in order to make it match
the stuff around it, and so I'll select that pattern fill
and then I'll go up to the Effect menu,
choose Distort and Transform,
and choose the Transform command,
or if you loaded D keys, you have that shortcut
of control E or command E on the Mac.
Alright, so just based on memory,
I set both the horizontal and vertical scale values
to 77% and I set the Rotate Angle Value
to negative 30 degrees,
and so I'll just go ahead and turn on the preview check box.
Apparently I can never remember the fact
that we need to turn off the Transform Objects check box,
so I'll go ahead and do that.
You want to make sure Transform Patterns
is turned on, after which point, click OK,
and now, assuming that the fill is twirled open,
click on the word Opacity and change
the Blend Mode to Overlay in order
to produce this effect here.
Alright, now we want to brush this thing
with yet another art brush,
and so bring up the Brushes panel,
and scroll to the top, at which point
you'll find this guy called charcoal.
Go ahead and select it,
and we want its color to be white,
so I'll go ahead and apply a white stroke
as we're seeing right here.
We also, just to protect the fill,
we want the stroke to be in the background,
so I'll drag it down the stack
so it appears below both fils,
and then I'll go ahead and scroLl in here
so that you can see this better.
We've got a problem where this stroke is concerned.
Notice that it kind of dies out down here
at the bottom of this top shape,
and to fix that, go ahead and click on
the Dialogue Box option at the bottom of the Brushes panel,
and just through trial and error,
I figured out, with the Preview check box on,
that I wanted to turn on both the Flip Along
and Flip Across check boxes,
and so in this case, it makes a little less sense
than it has before.
This kind of thing you just need to try out
to figure out that it works,
but I want you to remember that these flip options do,
at all times, exist, when you're working
with art brushes inside Illustrator.
Alright, I'll go ahead and hide the Brushes panel.
Press control shift A, or command shift A on a Mac
to deselect my artwork.
Press the F key a couple of times
to switch to the full screen mode,
and that, friends, is how you take an art brush
or any brush inside Illustrator
and expand it to full fledged static path outlines
so that you can fill it with a tile pattern
and then turn around and apply still more art brushes
here inside Illustrator.