Barbed wire Illustrator brush

Keep it simple. A fairly realistic metallic feel can be created with three colours. The twisted wire I created using the Zig zag filter on a horizontal stroke, and then Reflected a copy. Ta-dah! Twisted wire.

Anticipate how the ends of your short section of wire will look once it starts repeating.

Once you are happy with your art, drag it onto the New Brush icon on the Brushes panel and hit radio button New Pattern Brush. Use the Hue Shift Colorization Method and then you can easily change the overall colour of the brush by changing the stroke colour of the path that you have attached the barbed wire brush to.