Illustrator: Blob Brush Tips

A vintage ;-) CS4 demonstration of the Illustrator Blob Brush and tips for using the Blob Brush with Layers and the Eraser Tool in Illustrator. From a beginning Illustrator class by Laura Coyle.
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[@JayKaye23]

What a cool tool. I haven't used the blob brush yet. Can't wait to try it now.

[@LauraCoyle]

Yes you can use a blob brush path like any other closed path - including with mesh gradients. The blob can leave your path with a lot of extra anchor points - you could use the smooth tool a bit on the path to remove some of those if you want to simplify it, but that's up to you.

[@Fray4all]

Just found you and subscribed. Using CS6 but needed a refresher on Blob. Thanks so much, this was great.

[@LauraCoyle]

I use Screenflow for videos. Thanks for your comment!!

[@LauraCoyle]

Live trace 'traces" the black ink lines AND the white of the paper and turns both of them into shapes. The shapes from the white of the paper may be obscuring your underpainting. Be sure to expand, ungroup and get rid of the white paper shapes. Then it should work.

[@3rdrocket]

this helped me out a ton with a graphic design project I had to do for school! Thanks! =)

[@LauraCoyle]

You need a pressure sensitive tablet to use this option. Try updating or reinstalling the driver for your tablet. If it's a Wacom tablet, you can get download it for free from Wacom.com

[@marketRUMBA]

great tutorial. easy to understand. thanks.

[@LauraCoyle]

Glad it helped!

[@Rampagezed]

Excellent tutorial! You seem to fancy the Blob brush (I just saw the vid you did for Wacom). Just out of curiosity what software do you use to record the videos? Camtasia maybe?

[@LauraCoyle]

Woo hoo! Good luck with your design studies!

[@lykkebianca]

is it possible to use mesh or gradients on illustrations drawed with the blob tool ? i have a lot of figures drawed with blob tool and i want to colour them nicely and also keep them seperate so they can be moved around - possible ???

[@NedaDraws]

Nice! 😊

[@LauraCoyle]

Thanks! 😄

[@kellyn882]

Thanks a lot for this it's really easy to understand! :)

[@Patriciatrip6946]

hi, i love what you do but i seem to have an issue with this. Lets say i draw some roses with the calligraphic brush first (or maybe it doesnt matter) but i then later want to fill the roses in with colours like you did, how do i do it? Cus for me the layers just mark up one by one with dots and it changes the colour of the strokes but if i try like you did it just creates a mess and overwrites my drawing, it does not fill it in nicely like yours. How can i do it?

[@LauraCoyle]

I'm sorry I'm not clear on what you are asking - are you locking your layers, so you don't disturb the drawing while coloring on a separate layer?

[@nithya570]

when i use the blob brush tool, in default brush options, there is an option where i can change the brush pressure. but the 'pressure' option is inactive due to which i cant select the 'pressure' option. Please can anyone help me.

[@WithLoveFromKay]

wait are u using a tablet? ugh i wish i had one my course doesnt use one so i gotta stick with the mouse........

[@drawwithferoz7396]

thank u

[@LauraCoyle]

You're welcome!

[@nithya570]

thanx.....

[@evan250592]

I have blob brush problem. I change my brush size to 0.25 but it seem when i brush using pen. It draws to 1 why?

[@LauraCoyle]

evan iskandar 1pt. is the minimum size for the Blob Brush Tool Options. But, you can make a Calligraphic brush smaller, and then use it with the Blob Brush Tool.

[@leamsi4ever]

How come sometimes when I paint with the same color the tool creates a new shape, and sometimes it merges with the current shape? I can't figure out why it only merges sometimes.

[@LauraCoyle]

+leamsi2099 Double click on the tool in the tool panel and you can change it's settings. When merge with selected and keep selected are checked (usually by default) you get the merging behavior.

[@iorioriorio]

WHY DOES MY STUPID BLOB REVERT TO BLACK EVERY TIME?? i need it to do greens and trees....every time I have to re- sample my green- extremely annoying- I have ill. c5

[@LauraCoyle]

The brush takes it's color from the stroke color you have set in the color panel, so make sure the stroke is green. (if the stroke color is none, I think then it will use the fill color instead). Once painted, the blob strokes become fills, because of the nature of that brush. If in the interim you select something with a black stroke, it gets "loaded" onto your color panel, and hence your brush. Hope that helps.

[@iorioriorio]

yes , it does....finally figured it out....watta crazy idea that was at adobe...hope they fired the guy......when he dies he'll be in blob hell where there's nothing but black strokes and fills

[@marduv]

blob