Thanks Egg, in my mind brushes are not only "effects". They can translate impressions. I think there is a world of explorations and introspection inside this tool, perhaps very different than in textures or fractals because of their gestual(?) and graphical nature.
As Risto and more recently Tao Jones have shown it in their tasty and very humoristic images there is room in Xara X for expression without use of brushes. And I am sure there is plenty of room in brushes for a very different expression than mine.
That's the versatility of Xara X.

Below are some links to Franquin and his very famous world.

My preferred character is "Comte de Champignac" (he is a fool of mushrooms like I am a fool of roses), and my preferred book is "QRN sur Bretzelburg").

Short biography:

http://fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de/~ramsch/G...nquin.eng.html

Other pages (the first one very informative and with interesting links):

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark...46/SPRINT.html

http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~janl/ts/franquin.html

http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~janl/ts/viggo.html

http://www.geo.fmi.fi/~tmakinen/cart...franquin.shtml

Kind regards,

ivan