tapered brush strokes

Please help. I really would like to know how to create variable brush stokes in

Freehand MX. I have tried using the calligraphic pen and that is awful and even

creating a custom brush does not give neatly tapered lines. How do the graphic 
designers do it? Do they punch organic shapes, do they just trace really well 
or just use the pen tool really well OR do they have a set of brushes that I 
dont have? Even tracing an image is difficult as there are bound to be one or 
two nodes that are not smooth. Even the auto-trace tool is not neat.  These are

examples of vector images with smooth tapered lines: 
 http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/5394729_flower.php?id=5394729

 
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/object/4652986_floral_design.php?id=4652

986 

 How on earth are these created so neatly and perfectly? Are there more brushes

one can download for Freehand because the library of brushes now is soooooo 
limited. What am I missing...please help...

 Thank-you
 Louise

>  How on earth are these created so neatly and perfectly? Are there more
brushes
> one can download for Freehand because the library of brushes now is
soooooo
> limited. What am I missing...please help...

Create your own custom brushes. Create a shape(s) you want to use like a wedge
for a tapered stroke and conver to symbol. After applying a brush select new
from the options and us your new symbol. There are a lot os options how the
symbol will behave.

In general Brush is nothing more than a symbol with a control curve or spline.

In addition to creating your own brushes, which is very useful, you can
create graceful tendrils and spirals several ways in FreeHand.

Use the Spiral tool as a starting point. Apply a tapered brush stroke.

Another method that creates even nicer spirals is to use power duplicate.
Use this method to create a series of small paths to join into a single
path. Here's an old tip of mine here that shows how to power-duplicate
spirals. 

http://www.freehandsource.com/_frames/_tips/_archive/tip_week045.html

I wrote this before FH offered the Transform Effect, but you can do the same
by combining rotate, move, scale and copy commands. Here's an example to get
you started:

1. Draw a vertical line 10 points long. Leave selected
2. Object Panel>Effects>Transform.

Add all of these transformation within the same Transform Effect:
Scale 101% uniform
Rotate 8 degrees
Move x:0, y:-8
Center x:13.21, y:4.596
Copies 100

(Hint: When you have a spiral you like, highlight Effect: Transform in the
Object Panel and make a Style which you can apply to other objects.)

3. When you have a smooth spiral, Separate Attributes.
4. Ungroup and Join.
5. Simplify path.
6. Apply a wedge-shaped brush stroke.

If you apply the spiral Transform Effect to a slightly tapered rectangle and
ensure that all the copies overlap smoothly, you won't need a brush stroke.

Judy Arndt