Illustrator Brushes

I've been experimenting with illustrator the last few days... trying to getting better at producing elegant curves/swooshes/lines... I've discovered there is an easier/faster way of doing this besides drawing it out onto a piece of paper, then scanning it, and then finally tracing the entire thing into a vector.

I've discovered that by creating a brush, it makes the task of producing a large amount of curves/swooshes faster, and easier. Right now I am trying to get better at producing brushes to use on those curves. My best one so far is a wing-tipped brush. I think after building more with it, and maybe mixing it with a few different brushes it could turn out awesome.

Through all of this, I have discovered creating a brush is not as easy as it seems. The most difficult part is coming up with the idea for the brush... with brushes you have to remain in a almost a straight line-format, and contain your brush to a thin-rectangular shape... otherwise it may turn out deformed (according to my recent experiments with brushes).