Lookng for a dip pen

[David_Fine]

Does anyone know of a dip pen type of brush which has some nice character? I mean so that it has something more than just thick and thin black line. Not even sure exactly what, but thought maybe someone would have something interesting they can recommend.

Thanks!

[neonnoodle]

Let me see what I can put together. Did you have in my any particular nib shape? Round or flat?

[David_Fine]

Thanks noodle. I think a roundish pen which has some variety. I think there are some settings which I am not so expert in which can give it something interesting. I was playing with a brush I just made from a simple blob and I set the angle to Fade, which was interesting because it gave a slight random thick and thin to the line, but then went constant. I wonder how I could make it randomly go thick or thin a bit so that it always has some variation, even at full pressure. So pressure would determine the line weight, but at full weight, it would never be a constant. Here is a picture which explains better.

line thing.jpg (185.51 KiB) Viewed 4225 times

[Fabrice]

Hi David,

I have a couple of brushes I can share.
Please give me some time.

[neonnoodle]

Thanks noodle. I think a roundish pen which has some variety. I think there are some settings which I am not so expert in which can give it something interesting. I was playing with a brush I just made from a simple blob and I set the angle to Fade, which was interesting because it gave a slight random thick and thin to the line, but then went constant. I wonder how I could make it randomly go thick or thin a bit so that it always has some variation, even at full pressure. So pressure would determine the line weight, but at full weight, it would never be a constant. Here is a picture which explains better.

The attachment line thing.jpg is no longer available

Gotcha. This looks like a job for an animbrush, with a smooth "blobby" animated tip that loops.

Edit: I tried this and it works. Here's what the brush looks like (see attached). The middle line is full pressure the whole time, but it has a slight variation throughout. The top and bottom lines are thick & thin with pressure, but with the added wobbly aspect.

[David_Fine]

Very interesting. So do you have this brush that I could use? It looks pretty simple for me to create here, but I'm not clear on how you created the varying random wobble throughout. The brush itself is just an oval blob, so that's easy enough.

I'm also interested in trying something where the ink line has some nuance, as if it was a real liquid on paper and absorbed a bit and maybe was not just jet black clean edge all of the time. So that it seemed like a dip pen that sometimes was not perfectly applied. Is that remotely possible?

I'm also unclear on what Drying does as it seems to make no difference for me when I turn it on or off. "Origin" for Wet Profile is a new option that is not in 10.5.7. I wonder what that does?

[neonnoodle]

I can upload a brush for you when I get back to my main desktop, the mockup there was done with the demo version of TVP on another computer.
The rotation is accomplished with a 360-frame animated loop of the blob rotating one degree per frame. Then the animbrush is set to "Random and loop." It'll be easy to see when I upload it properly. I'll also try to play around with an "inky edge."

[David_Fine]

Thank you Noodle. Much appreciated. Go Bruins!

[neonnoodle]

Give this a spin and lemme know how it goes!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/424 ... ippen.tvpx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[schwarzgrau]

That's some amazing sketching brush. It's really fast and acts great.

The only downside is that anti-aliasing is off, so you get these hard edges

dippen.png (23.99 KiB) Viewed 4341 times

200% zoom

and if you turn it on the brush gets really laggy, at least on my old MacBook

[neonnoodle]

That's some amazing sketching brush. It's really fast and acts great.

The only downside is that anti-aliasing is off, so you get these hard edges

dippen.png

200% zoom

and if you turn it on the brush gets really laggy, at least on my old MacBook

Ahh, OK. I didn't even realize, since I tend to work at high resolution. I like aliased brushes because they look more "crisp" to me, and the jaggies don't bug me. But you're right, that might make some issues for others. The reason it's so laggy is that there are 360 frames of animation inside the brush. Let me see if I can make an alternative with fewer frames and anti-aliasing intact...

Edit: OK, I updated the file with an extra version that has medium anti-aliasing:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/424 ... ippen.tvpx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[David_Fine]

Yes, I put medium on right away. It is interesting and I am going to play with it. There is a kind of fringe around it. 360 images seems like it might be an issue for some systems. I wonder if this brush can be achieved by just using the one stamp image and having it turn. I notice drying is on, but turning it off doesn't seem to make a difference. What is it for? And why Alpha Max? I am asking because I am trying to learn more about these details. Thanks!

[neonnoodle]

The fringe is there to give it sort of a scratchy texture, like the edges of a nib that don't have as much ink. As far as I know, "drying" means that all strokes made by the brush will be affected by the right-click erasing function. If drying is disabled, only the last stroke you made will be erasable, the rest will not be erased when you do the right-click:

drying.png (187.16 KiB) Viewed 4336 times

[schwarzgrau]

360 images seems like it might be an issue for some systems.

I made a brush using 1024 images, which is pretty fast, but it depends on the size.

I wonder if this brush can be achieved by just using the one stamp image and having it turn.

I tried to set Animation to None and Angle to Pressure and then played with the curve, but I didn't get the same effect, just a bit similar.

I notice drying is on, but turning it off doesn't seem to make a difference. What is it for? And why Alpha Max?

I never noticed the behaviour Zoe mentioned about drying, but it's intersting. I use it together with the power setting of the brush.
I set the power of the brush to constant 70% and drew the left crossed circle with drying, the right is without drying.

circle.jpg (25.17 KiB) Viewed 4335 times

Unfortunately I forgotten whats the difference between alpha max and alpha stamp. But generally you can define how your source image get's used as custom brush. If the brush should use it as it is (useful if you got more then one color in your brush, the downside is you can't change the color afterwards) or if it only uses it as luma or alpha matte.

[David_Fine]

Ah, thank you. Now Drying seems so obvious. I get it. It doesn't work with a black line though, which is why I never saw it.