Comments on: Illustrator 101: To Scale or Not to Scale? Strokes, That Is.

By: Bigger and Louder Farts

Bigger and Louder Farts — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:33:21 +0000

I wonder if I could get a bounding box on my a$$?

By: Laura G

Laura G — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 06:19:31 +0000

I had been looking for this,
all this week, thank u very much
u saved my life :D

By: Holly D

Holly D — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:37:39 +0000

Horray! I’ve been changing mananually and finally figured it was time to figure out how to do this in AI – I’m more familiar with Corel but have tried to wean off it to AI but go back to Corel when I can’t figure something out. Thanks for the great tip!

By: Jenny

Jenny — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:35:41 +0000

This is a great tip, but it didn’t work for scaling down a brushstroke. What am I doing wrong? Also, I am working with a logotype, and as I scale the illustration with the brushstroke larger, eventually this distorts the position of the type. Any suggestions?

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 12:20:52 +0000

Thanks for this – I’ve been tearing my hear out wondering why strokes didn’t scale!

By: Lorraine

Lorraine — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:08:14 +0000

Thank you very much.

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By: PETER JONSON

PETER JONSON — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:26:24 +0000

CAN YOU SEND THIS TO MY BOSS????

By: CARLY

CARLY — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:32:52 +0000

Wow thanks for the great tips!

By: James Grifin

James Grifin — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:44:59 +0000

Your tutorials are excellent for Illustrator users if your a beginner or not. Your teaching methods are very precise, clear and un-patronising.

Thanks

By: Andres

Andres — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:55:21 +0000

Thanks a loooooooooooot!!!
You’ve save my life…and my time.

By: hexefish

hexefish — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 17:15:05 +0000

Thanks for this tip!

By: kskdsn

kskdsn — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:29:27 +0000

Still possible, but a little more advanced. You need to use the “Brush” tab (open it from menus Window>Brushes).

Now, draw a little circle (maybe 1/4″), with the fill & stroke characteristics you want. In the Brush tab, open the little click-down arrow at top right of the tab and choose “new brush”. it will ask you what type, so choose “Scatter” and name it if you want. For now, leave all the settings at the default and choose ok.

Next, draw an empty rectangle, circle or pen shape on the artboard, and click on your new brush icon in the tab. This should stroke your line with the brush you just created. If it’s not quite the effect you want, double click your custom brush icon and tweak the size/spacing percentages (you probably want to keep them set to “fixed”) until you get what you want.
Then, just expand the stroke.

With custom brush strokes, you can get lines made of not just circles, but anything you can draw in Illustrator. I did a project in which I quickly created a swirl of colored flowers, by making a custom flower brush and adjusting the settings to vary the size, scatter and color.
Have fun.
KSKDSN

By: The Aitch

The Aitch — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:05:19 +0000

Thanks KSKDN Just last week I “found” how to convert a stroke to a path, and I know all about the dashed lines, but I want a dotted line. Seems like no matter what values I set for my dashed strokes, they are still square. I would like round. Thks

By: kskdsn

kskdsn — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:50:33 +0000

Aitch-
This makes no sense to me, but this is how to do it.
Make a line and set its style to dashed.
With it selected, go to Object>Flatten Transparency.
Make sure “convert all strokes to outlines” is selected. Hit OK, and you’re done.
Your original stroke will still be there, but each little dash segment has now been bumped into it’s own shape.
Good luck.
-KSKDSN

By: kskdsn

kskdsn — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:46:52 +0000

theMunna-
Creating a gif from an Illustrator doc is simple.
Go to File>Save for Web.
Pick GIF from the first drop-down list on the right side.
Click “transparency” on.
Then in the “matte” setting, pick a color that matches your background (you’ll see it showing in the preview).
Unfortunately, one color won’t suit every background. You might need to customize each image for different background colors.
Good Luck
-KSKDSN

By: sankoch

sankoch — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:37:34 +0000

thanks

By: The Aitch

The Aitch — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:51:03 +0000

Awesome! but here’s where I need help. How do I make a dotted stroke in illustrator and then, how do I convert that dotted stroke to a path?

Thanks very much and looking forward to your advice!

By: nick-fu

nick-fu — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:54:31 +0000

thank you so much for making my life a whole lot easier!!

;)
nick

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:49:57 +0000

Cool. Great tip! Is this in CS3 only? Thanks a lot