Brush tool, or Line tool?

[KingDavid]

Which do you favor for drawing / animating, brush or line? Explain.

My Preference: Brush

Why:

Because it's east to work with, gives a cartoony look, and is a hell of a lot easier to fbf w/. I'd only used the pencil / line tool for mostly tweened animations.

David

[rtil]

i'll copy what i said in the original thread to begin with -

paul uses conventional tricks in flash to escape the mouse brush fallbacks. if you zoom way into his images you can see the lines are rather shaky, but these are because they are drawn at an enormous size, then scaled down later. this reduces popping and jitters during animation. it also takes him a very long time to finish animations (no offense to him at all, he is an excellent animator, it's just something you deal with with a mouse and a brush.)

personally, i despise the line, pencil and pen tools. since i have worked in graphite a long time in my life i recognize the importance of line width variation. the pencil lines do not offer this in any manner. i understand the importance of the pencil lines to make vector graphics, as you can remove them after inserting fills and gradients unlike with the brush lines.

however, when it comes to animation in my style vector does just not work out. it is time consuming and the results make it ultimately unecessary. groups like sambakza can pull it off, but this is with an ungodly amount of manhours and a steady hand. the brush tool allows me more freedom to emphasize what to look at and what to fade into the background. it gives the most painterly feel that flash can give you, and with a smoothing sensitivity slider bar you can't really go wrong.

it takes time getting used to flash's brush, as most are used to having complete control over their lines such as in photoshop. but once you get the hang of it, your animations will be much stronger and you will have full control over your viewer's eye. John K uses the brush tool very well, and he is one of my favorite animators.

[Kostya]

I prefer brush tool over line tool. with the brush tool, it may take a while to get good at but, it can make things just look smoother. where, with the line tool, it looks more man made than natural(in my opinion). and, once you can animate fast with the brush tool, you can increase the fps and make everything look alot smoother. but, when you are using the line tool, you can easily put it in the same exact spot(if you know how the line can bend and whatnot) which is just like copying and pasting. I can't say which takes longer to make 1 frame because, it really depends on how much detail you'd put into it. and, if you get good with the brush tool, you can make it look like you use the line tool when you really aren't. I used to use the line tool, but that was before I got my tablet. I'm pretty amazed how Paul ter Voorde does it.
i hope not to offend anybody when i say these things.

[KingDavid]

I'm going to give brush tool a REAL hard attempt. If all fails, hello line tool again.

Post count: 123 omg lol

[Zaeon]

um well when I started the first thing I saw was the pencil which sucked dick for a while

then i became fuckin sonic ass and started working with the paintbrush and then someone brought me back to the pencil which I could use better but then rubberninja imed me telling me to use the paintbrush and i never listened to him

but eventually as I got better at flash I figured out that the paintbrush was betta!!

[Zwickel]

Both have their pros/ cons.

[rtil]

Both have their pros/ cons.

you have a point lol, but don't you think the brush can offer what the pencil does as well if you turn the pressure off?

[Zwickel]

Also think this, when you make your rough animations or for long animations, doing stuff with the line tool will keep the file size smaller, because the amount of vectors a brush stroke has is greater than a simple line....

When editing lines you can mold them easier, something you can't do really well with the brush tool, but I really prefer the looks of brush over line.

[Blordow]

Brush tool for sure. I usually draw my "decent" flashes in about %400 zoom while using the brush tool. They turn out just as good as the line tool. Although the line too seems to look more smooth and presentable, it's harder to get the correct look to your animations with it. With the brush tool it's easier to draw and get around with.

[Mental Terrorist]

Line tool?

[trent bortknob]

i dunno i think the line tool makes things look like crap

[Mental Terrorist]

I use the line tool all the time.

[Slick]

The first thing I do when I open flash is go for the brush tool. It feels a lot more free and less restricted than the line and pencil tools. I started using the brush, however, once I got my graphics tablet. Before that I used the line tool all the time. The brush tool is a lot faster, easier and can be great for getting ideas down quickly. I found when I drew with the line tool I'd be sat adjusting the size and shape for ages before I'd gotten on to planning out what I was going to animate. I agree with what a lot of you say, that the line tool can make something look extremely proffesional and clean when you get used to it and put in the huge amount of time. But the brush tool is so much more fun to use. You can't created amazing blood gushing with the line tools unless to put loads of work in, whereas you can get that random splattered effect with the advantage of the pressure control as well with the brush tool (and a tablet).

[unicomics]

i like the brush tool simply because i suck at using the line tool
the pic below me was done with using the line tool, just look at how crap i am using the line tool

[notorious]

wow looks like brush tool pwnd this debate. It's overruled, pretty much everyone uses the brush tool unless you're doing anime, it gives you more options for thickness, texture, etc.

[Zwickel]

You are all fucking noobs, you should learn how to use the beizer pen. (LMAO)

[MetalDart]

Brush because when I use the pencil tool, my mouse makes it so that the line comes out too shaky and would need too much smoothing. I really should clean my work area soon. ):

[frozenfire]

I use the line tool a lot but I use the bush a lot as well.  The line is just easier for me right now, but when i Get a Tablet Im sure I will be useing the brush tool a lot more. right now im using the touchpad on my laptop for all my flashes.. and it isnt proportional to the screen

[Funakoshi]

I use the brush because I find the lines frustrating to draw with. Although I'm considering trying lines again for later.

[Anigen]

i use the pencil tool for roughs (thickness 2.0) and paintbrush to do my final copies