Add realism with custom Pattern brushes

One look at a Bert Monroy image and you will immediately recognize the intricacy and rich realism of his style of illustration. When crafting an image like the Rendez-vous Cafe (below), Monroy travels between Adobe® Illustrator® and Adobe® Photoshop®, stopping long enough in Illustrator to construct the intricate shapes and details that turn his scenes into slices of life in Photoshop. The easel chain is one such detail that Monroy created in Illustrator using a custom-made Pattern brush.

Illustration copyright © 2004 by Bert Monroy. May not be reproduced without permission.

1. Draw, cut, copy, and reflect curves.

To build a chain-link Pattern brush, Monroy first created one link that was interconnected with half-links on either side (the half-links would connect with other half-links to form the chain once the Pattern brush was applied to a path). To create the pattern unit with the Ellipse tool, begin the center link by drawing an ellipse with a thick stroke. Copy the ellipse, Paste in Back; then turn the ellipse into a guide (View > Guides > Make Guides). You'll use this guide later when making the half-links. Now select the original ellipse and use the Scissors tool to cut the ellipse near each of the four control points (choose View > Outline to better see the points). Shift-select the four curved paths with the Direct Selection tool and select Object > Path > Outline Stroke. Illustrator automatically constructs four closed-curve objects.

To make the right half-link, select the left two curve objects and duplicate them to make the right half-link by dragging the two objects to the right while holding down the Opt/Alt key; then change the color of the copies.

For the left half-link, select the two curves you just dragged and colored, choose the Reflect tool, hold down the Opt/Alt key and click in the center of the ellipse guide (the center point is an X). In the Reflect dialog box, click the Vertical Axis button and click Copy to create a mirror-image of the right half-link for the left half-link.

Note: The center link must be aligned exactly in-between the two half-links, so that the half-links join when applied to a path as a Pattern brush.

2. Finish the link.

The two adjoining half-links should look like they're entwined with the link. Monroy selected the top objects of both the left and right half-links and moved them behind the center link (Object > Arrange > Send to Back). You can create a different look by selecting the top of the left half-link, and the bottom of the right half-link, and moving them to the back.

3. Make and use a Pattern brush.

To make the brush, select the artwork and drag it into the Brushes palette. Choose New Pattern Brush in the New Brush dialog box; in the next dialog box, name the brush and click OK (leave the default settings as you find them). You can now apply the chain pattern to a path by selecting the path and clicking on the brush in the Brushes palette.

Depending on the size of your original links artwork, you may need to reduce the size of the brush artwork to fit the path better. You can do this by reducing the original artwork with the Scale tool and making a new brush, or by double-clicking the brush in the Brushes palette and editing the value in the Scale field of the dialog box.

Bert Monroy

Artist Bert Monroy incorporates elements he draws in Illustrator into the detailed realism he paints in Photoshop. In this cafe scene, Monroy used Illustrator Pattern brushes for the sign post and the easel chain. For the leaves in the foreground, Monroy first drew one leaf object and made it into a Scatter brush (he used Random settings for the brush parameters). He brought resulting foliage into Photoshop where he detailed it further.

Excerpted from “The Illustrator CS WOW! Book,” Copyright ©2004 by Sharon Steuer, published by Peachpit Press. Used with the permission of Pearson Education and Peachpit Press. To buy this book, visit www.peachpit.com.