How to make a stroke with a variable width

The Blob Brush makes calligraphic lines, and this may be the simple answer to the viewers search. There are many options in its options panel (double-click the tool in the toolbar) - explore it for now, come to the beanillustrator.com site in a few weeks for a full explanation.

This is a loaded question. It came in about the Line Segment tool, so I'll take care of that first. You can't. Ahhh, don't fret, it's not that bad. I do it six or twenty times an hour. The thing to do is to use a Zen approach. Take the word "line" out of the situation, and you have a long skinny box (Line Segment tool only makes straight lines). To make life easier, give the path a stroke width equal to either the thin or thick end you want (I assume the searcher wanted to make a long skinny wedge shape). Now go to Object>Path>Outline Stroke. This removes the stroke, per se, and leaves a really skinny rectangle in its place. It may not look like what you expected, because sometimes you end up with a stroke around the rectangle. Isn't that just ducky? You wanted something exactly so wide, and now it's got a fat old stroke on it. Well, just delete the stroke by selecting the Stroke marker in the bottom of the toolbar and click the None color. Now the stroke is gone. Go to the end of the "line" that you want to make thicker or thinner; choose the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and click one point on that end of the "line." Move it in the direction you need.


Considerations: I can't see what you've done, but assuming you raised one point. If you just grabbed it and moved it, it may not be aligned with the other point. Use the Align palette or the Align menu on the Control Panel to line them up again.

Curved Path, variable stroke: Now, you may want to draw a cartoon-like path - say one going around a duck's or dog's head. They usually start out thin, get thicker in the middle, and thin out again. We call that a thick-and-thin line, say it's dynamic, and look at it with glee when we've created it. How's it done? It's along the same line (no pun intended) as the approach above. Draw your path, or a whole bunch of paths, using any line weight you want. I usually use something like a 2-pt line, but that depends on how large the drawing is... At any rate, get the job drawn in single-weight paths. Then select them all and go to Object>Paths>Outline Stroke, same as before. But now the work begins. For a simple setup where you want heavy lines on the bottom and thin at the top, choose the Group Selection tool (white arrow with plus sign) and click the inside or outside edge. Move it appropriately (I like using the keyboard arrows, myself).

If you want to go with the cartooney look, I usually leave the inside more or less sacred so the shape remains recognizable. Then, one-at-a-time, I move points with the Direct Selection tool (white arrow) and adjust control handles to create the appropriate curves. It seems like a lot of work, but you get into the swing of it and it is well worth the effort.