Recreating an Inconsistent Fill or Brush Stroke in Illustrator or Photoshop

[nommeansum]

I'm trying to recreate a fill or brush effect I see another blogger using in his image graphics. I've included examples below or attached to this thread. Can anyone advise on how to recreate this in Illustrator or Photoshop? I can't tell if it's a brush stroke or a fill. My guess would be a fill but I could be wrong. I like the way it looks almost like a water color brush. E.g. the opacity is inconsistent and it goes beyond the edges of the object its fillings stroke. Examples:

 

[nommeansum]

To clarify, I'd prefer to know if this is possible to do in illustrator. It seems like you can achieve a similar effect with the brush tool in photoshop but it would be much preferable to do this in illustrator just using fills.

 

[Paul Murray]

I don't think you'd get an inconsistent wash effect like that with vectors without a lot of hassle. Maybe with a texture pattern overlaid.

It's literally a 5 second job in Photoshop with a watercolour brush and a Wacom tablet though.

 

[scotty]

If you're insistent on using Illustrator then I'd maybe try searching on the net for a pattern or texture fill and use the blob brush to apply it to give that irregular shape.

 

[nommeansum]

Thanks for your help. I've gotten something similar using the Gaussian blur and sponge effects on the fill and bristle brush for the stroke in illustrator - but it's not exactly the same.

One more question if I may; I've somehow applied the cat's tongue brush to the stroke of a shape and can't seem to figure out how to retroactively apply it to the strokes on other shapes. How can I modify the stroke to make it a brush stroke after I've constructed the shape using the shape tool?