hello, i'd like to keep this topic alive. i'm hoping that this will be addressed with the upcoming release of moho (anime studio), or at least a subsequent update.
i also really like the drawing features in expression that have been discussed in this thread. i was kind of expecting the natural media-ish brushes in moho to function similarly, though i understand how this would be difficult to translate/program into animation. however, in moho there is definitely some harmful unpredictability with animated custom brushes, even with the minimize randomness feature checked.
there is one image in the included help documentation (tutorials/drawing/2.5 Brushes - toward the bottom with the black, magenta and green strokes) which shows a black stroke that seems to have a smooth, flowing brush stroke extending the length of the entire curve (much like expression). has anybody been able to replicate that using a brush, or is it just a "cheat"?
while i think that there can be rewarding, creative work produced using animated brushwork in moho (even with the quirks that have already been discussed), it seems that its only available for niche animation projects/experiments. i can't see myself producing work for television or anything that involves money using animated brushes as they currently function. i've seen some beautiful, slick animations that use ink- and paint-like brushwork, and it seems very possible for moho to achieve this functionality.
since this feature could really make anime studio indespensible for natural-media looking animation projects or elements of a project (currently you really need to use after effects or a 3D package, neither of which have good drawing tools), i hope it can be improved enough to be usable or at least more predictable. i'd think that modern computers would be able to handle rendering out "expression-style" animated strokes to an image sequence or movie file, though real-time screen rendering is probably still out of the question. even if it took a long time to render, if the results were satisfying it would be worth using for "real" projects.
moho developers -- any thoughts or answers about this? is this request any sort of priority, or is there any reason we users should just forget about it? it seems like such a simple, obvious step to improve the brush animation, but i am not a programmer and perhaps there is a very good reason why this won't be possible (that is, until
anime studio xtreme elite rockstar professional is released, and costs as much as toon boom harmony

).
these forums are an excellent resource, there should be a huge amount of traffic here once anime studio is unleashed. despite my complaints and the problems that are discussed on the forums, i really think this software is incredible and i am very excited to see its evolution. even as it is, i don't think its very far off from being a standard package placed alongside flash and toon boom. man, this is a long post.