I posted this video several days ago. Here is a little more info about how I use the brush tool in Adobe Illustrator.

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I start by modifying the brush tool settings. To do this, simply double-click on the brush tool in the Tool palette. These are the settings that I used, but you can play around with it to see what works for you.

These settings basically show how much Illustrator smoothes your lines and curves. In general, I usually end up moving the sliders down from the default quite a bit, because I don’t like my drawing being over-“corrected” while I’m working. I keep it so the line smooths out a little, but still keeps most of the integrity of the original line I drew.

Next, I pick a brush. I normally use a regular ol’ round brush. I change the size depending on the line I want, with the width determined by my pen pressure. Double-click the brush in brush palette to see these settings.

I almost always move the “Variation” slider all the way up to get the maximum thick/thin line. Move it down to get less varied thicknesses. If you want a line that has the same thickness throughout, change “Pressure” to “Fixed”.

To help me out in the future, I made my own custom brush palette. All it contains is a bunch of round brushes at different sizes. You can do this by creating all your different brushes, then going to the arrow in right top corner of the brush palette and clicking “Save Brush Library”.

Give your brushes a name and save. The next time you want to use them, just go to this same menu and choose “Open Brush Library” to find your brushes.

This is what my custom brush library looks like:

I hope this makes things a little clearer when you view the video. More questions or comments? Drop a note below.