Creating Photoshop Brushes using Adobe Illustrator Objects

Creating Photoshop Brushes with Illustrator Shapes. Easy. Seamless workflow. Great results!
In this sample I am using stars, circles and lines.
You can use any shape desired to achieve the look you want to get.

1. With the Ellipse tool selected, create a perfect circle (best to draw from center: hold down the option/alt and shift key). From the view menu bar: guides: make guides. Lock the guide.

Guide from an object (you can make a guide from any object in Illustrator)

2. With the Star tool selected, create a star, and snap it to the guide (View: Snap to Guide)

    With the Rotate tool selected (from the tool box) hold down the Option/alt key and click 

    on the center of the guide. 36° and click copy. Make sure your preview is on!

Stars around the guide

3. Once one star is copied, go to the Object menu bar: Transform: Transform again (command/Control D). Repeat to create a complete circle of stars.

Circle of stars

4. Repeating the same commands, create a line and rotate in to the center of the guide.

Lines rotated in 36°

5. Repeating the same commands, create a circle on top of the line and rotate it again 36°.

   With the Circle selected, choose the Scale tool from the tool box to scale the group of the small

   circles to the center of the guide, and use the Transform again command to scale the group of   the small circle to the center of the guide 80% each time.   

   6. Go to the View menu: Guides: hide or clear guides.

Final shape

7. Select the final shape: Object: Group  (Command/Control G). Edit Copy (Command/Control C).

8. In Photoshop: Create a new document 72 DPI. White Background. Edit menu bar: Paste (command/Control V) Select the Path in the dialog box.

9. the path is loaded to the selected Background. In the path Panel save the path.

(give it a name in case you want to bring another path to the same file -only one work path per file)

Path from Illustrator

10. Now the fun starts! Add a new empty layer and name it: Brush practice.

     Make sure that the path is loaded to the new layer. With the brush tool selected choose a brush

     stroke the path. (Best to choose first the brush and than go to the stroke path command) .     

    stroke the path. (Best to choose first the brush and than go to the stroke path command) 

     Make sure the foreground color is black: Select the Path with the path selection tool.

     Go to Path: Stroke Selection. Experiment with the brush size.

Brush size, stroke path command

11. Select the outer Stars and play with the Brush size to stoke it. Select the rest of the shapes and

      stroke it with a smaller brush size.

Path is stroked with 2 or 3 different sizes of brush

12. Load the selection of the stroked layer (Select load Selection or Command/Control Click on
      the layer thumbnail to load the selection. Edit: Define Brush Preset and give it name.

      

Saving the brush

13. Now the fun begins! Create a new layer and start testing the brush you created!

Drawing with the new brush

14. Working on the brush variations. Changing the size on the  spacing in the main brush dialog

      box, finding the space and size needed for the design. 

Spacing preview

15. Changing the Shape Dynamic controls, playing with the direction of the brush - make sure 

      you see the preview of the brush. Choose a color for the Foreground and Background.

      In the Brush control - adjust the color dynamic controls. Work with the saturation and 

      the brightness Jitter. You can introduce more colors to the brush if you change the amount

      of the Hue slider. Play with the Purity slider to achieve pure colors or gray scale.

      Explore!

16. With the brush tool, explore the brush strokes and the colors. Add effects to the brush.

      Drop Shadow, Bevel and Emboss to create any metal look! (gold, copper, silver).

      Adding different effects will effect the brush look as well. Save the brush preset.

Final Brushes! Keep playing and exploring!