While drawing on the computer, I do not stray outside of Photoshop very often. But this time around, I decided to take advantage of Adobe Illustrator to create this cute little black and white spot illustration.

See more info about this video on the DaniDraws.com website.

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.