Issue with pencil tool and recognized lines

[Thaenor]

I started out by drawing the character I wanted to animate. I used the pencil tool, which snapped the line to similar looking geometric shapes. It took some trial and error but I managed to get the character looking the way I wanted. My next step was to give it color.

I tried the paint bucket, but this didn't do anything - probably there is a gap somewhere in the drawing, but I can't visibly find it anywhere. I'm guessing this has to do with the pencil tool, the drawing looks cohesive, but Animate assumes it to be various unlinked shaped, hence why the paint bucket doesn't work.

this gives me a whole lot of questions:

• what is the best workflow to do what I pretend?
• should I be using shapes and the morphing them into the figure I want so the paint bucket can be used?
• where I can get that loose, sketch like pencil that allows me to freely draw a crude character sketch? (the default pencil tool forces the loose line into a shape)

sorry if these questions are answered somewhere else, I'm a bit lost and stuck in my project and don't even know where to look for help to continue.

[Thaenor]

I figured this one out. If you use the white point selector - the one that shows the vectors that compose the image - you will see there's some vector that don't connect with the rest, although the "look" connected.

Zoom in and scan though the entire drawing, connected otherwise unconected vectors until you end up with a cohesive figure. Now the paint bucket works like it's suposed to.

Another ideia I found online is to cross sections of the drawing with vectors, effectively closing them and painting in sections.

[UDESCO · Accepted solution]

Thaenor  wrote

this gives me a whole lot of questions:

• what is the best workflow to do what I pretend?
• should I be using shapes and the morphing them into the figure I want so the paint bucket can be used?
• where I can get that loose, sketch like pencil that allows me to freely draw a crude character sketch? (the default pencil tool forces the loose line into a shape)

Pencil tool by default works in Straigten mode. You can change the mode to Smooth or Ink that'll be more suited to how you intend to draw.

Below image shows the sub options of Pencil tool (located at the bottom of tool's panel when Pencil tool is selected.)

You may want to draw your character using the Brush tool instead of Pencil. It'll save you from doing all that you mentioned in your second post.

[Thaenor]

But even if I draw with the brush tool, I'll create a rough sketch with loose lines - even drawing several lines on top of each other until I get it right.

Then I'll "ink" it with a steady line that defines the actual drawing. Won't I have the same problem at this phase? Should I use the "straighten"?