Cross-Hatch Brushes for Illustrator

This add-on is a stand alone brush set that's part of my Ultimate Cartoonist Brushes kit for Adobe Illustrator. If you are interested in learning more, go to my shop profile. Give your illustrations a sense of depth by using cross-hatch shading techniques to achieve a natural sketch look effortlessly. This brush library is actually comprised of various different brush types. They essentially result in the same effect but behave quite differently in doing so. If you want to go for a rough and more realistic look, you may want to consider using the "freestyle" scatter brushes, which are displayed as square thumbnails in the brush panel. They come in different patterns and orientation, the purpose of which is to let you draw cross-hatch strokes from just about any direction depending on what's most comfortable for a particular area. And if you want to use more mechanical and precise shading, then the "fluid" pattern brushes might be what you're looking for. They are all made of seamless patterns and are capable of rendering beautiful uninterrupted lines, no matter if the path is straight or curved. For more details and some really useful information, please read the chapters below. I hope that you enjoy these goodies just as much as I do. Happy illustrating! --- FEATURES - 100% vector format - High quality brush set - Wide range of brush patterns - Optimized for good performance - Editable brush size and color --- BRUSH TYPES This library contains a wide variety of cross-hatch brush patterns, which range from precise and geometric to rough and hand drawn. In Adobe lingo, they are called "scatter" and "pattern" brush types, but I will be using my own terminology that I think is more fitting. The scatter brushes are depicted as squared thumbnails in the Brushes panel. I also refer to them as "freestyle" brushes due to the manner in which I usually find myself using them. Considering the fact that some of them are pressure sensitive, the best way to get the most out of those brushes is to grab the stylus and start drawing like you would with a real pencil. This will surely give your artwork a more natural and rough look. The shading pattern will depend on the brush you picked and the direction you use it in, of course. Stroke orientation plays a huge role in the pattern that is generated, especially with some scatter brushes. With a bit of practice and experimentation, you will find that those tools give you endless opportunities in the shading you create from the standard diagonal cross hatching to a very random and busy cross-hatch mess. For a more controlled shading, you may want to use the pattern brush type, or as I call them "fluid" brushes. Think of them as pre-made shaders. They are precise and "engineered". No pressure sensitivity is supported here. That makes them the perfect drawing instrument for the Pen tool P . But don't stop there. Most fluid brushes can be used freehand style as well. Criss-cross the strokes and you should observe how perfectly executed your shading gets. Which brush pattern and type you use is entirely up to you. I encourage you to spend some time playing around with all of them to get the basic idea. Be wild. Mix brush types, sizes and colors. Stack layers upon layers of strokes to unlock the power of this library. --- ADJUST COLOR & SIZE The base color of the brushes is black, but you can easily change it to anything you want in real time. Make sure you pick a color and start drawing. It's that simple! In regards to the size, there are not pre-made size presets. Instead, I focused on creating unique patterns that differ in density and/or thickness. As for the area that a single stroke occupies on the canvas, you can adjust that by increasing or decreasing the weight of the path's stroke. That essentially works as shrinking or enlarging the brush. --- TECHNICAL - Software: Adobe Illustrator - Brush Libraries: 1 brush library - Brushes total : 168 brushes - Colorization Capability: Yes - Size/Thickness Variations: Yes - Pressure Sensitivity: Yes where applicable - Organized & Named: Yes - User Manual: Yes .txt - Recommended RAM Capacity: 8GB - Recommended Artboard Size: 1,000 1,000 px minimum - Pack Size: 4MB archived --- SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY This brush library was created exclusively for Adobe Illustrator and is not supported by any other vector programs. --- PACK INCLUDES - 1 168 Cross-Hatch Shading Brushes .ai - 1 Instructions .txt