Custom Brushes CS4/CS5

Question

I have been trying to create a brush that looks like a REAL marker.  Looking at my image you can see the issue I am having.  Top image is a real marker scan.  Middle/left image is a calligraphic brush in illustrator.  Bottom image is what I used to create my art brush.   Middle/Right image is what I got after applying the art brush to middle/left path in Illustrator.
I am looking for something that behaves like a calligraphic brush but has the texture of an art brush. Is this possible in Illustrator?
Oh and it’s not the non-zero winding fill rule.

Answer 1

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I am looking for something that behaves like a calligraphic brush but has the texture of an art brush. Is this possible in Illustrator?
Neither ArtBrushes nor Pattern Brushes are going to give you the direction-dependent scaling (relative to the spine path) of a CalligraphicBrush.
Pattern brush would probably be your best bet. That way you can set the interior as well as both end caps.
In CS5, you can set an ArtBrush to scale only the region between two guides specified in the Art Brush Options dialog, thereby not scaling the "ends."  But this still does not give you the "keep-aligned-to-page" behavior of a Calligraphic Brush.
JRMN,
You are also going to encounter the mitering problem inherent in ArtBrushes. ArtBrushes don't make sharp direction changes very elegantly, as you can see in your middle-right image. Even if you do concoct an ArtBrush that you find satisfactory, it's usually best to break the spine path at sharp corners.
Why kick against the thorns? This kind of thing is still best done in a raster program. Corel Painter (Originally Fractal Design Painter) would be a good choice. If you insist on its being done as vector paths, you might take a look at Microsoft Expression Design (originally Fractal Design Expression). I don't recall whether it can make its "Expression Strokes" stay oriented to the page as they are stretched along the spine path; it's been a while since I messed with it.
JET