The Attack of the Blob

[DarkAngel]

Adobe Illustrator CS4 Tip - The Attack of the Blob

I doubt many of you are old enough to remember the 1958 classic sci-fi thriller "The Blob" staring Steve McQueen. It was about an alien life form that consumes everything it comes in contact with, as it grows and grows to an immense size. That's exactly what the new Blob Brush does in Illustrator.

To give it a try, press Shift+B to select the Blob Brush from the Tools panel. Click and drag to scribble a bit with the tool and release your mouse. You'll find it to be very similar to painting with a real brush, in that, all overlapping areas, as you paint, become one large filled shape.

Scribble some more over an existing object of the same color and the new Blob Brush object consumes the old object becoming one bigger vector shape. It's fun to use in combination with the Eraser tool (Shift+E) to remove parts of an existing Blob object.