Newby help: how can I connect these shapes?

[dazzathedrummer]

Hi,

I‘m relatively new to Illustrator so I’m just getting to grips with the tools and terminology etc.

I have an old drawing that I’ve traced in. It has gaps around its edges where the image trace didn’t pick up a full line and I need to join the lines in order to fill the gaps without the fill bleeding into the other areas.

I can can see that the lines are in fact shapes (they have a blue line around them when selected), if I use the pen or brush tool I get paths (blue line through the middle) - what’s the best way to join up these scanned lines that are now shapes?

im sure this is very basic - but that’s where I’m at  

[Doug A Roberts · Accepted solution]

you could use the blob brush. release any groups first and select the shapes you want to join, then paint.

[dazzathedrummer]

Thanks- I’ll give that a go!

[dazzathedrummer]

Thanks Doug, this really helped.

I looked at some tutorials based on the blob brush and was able to join the gaps and fill in between exactly as I wanted.

...for anyone else reading this I’ll add that you need to isolate the paths and make sure that you’re new paths are inside the live paint bucket group (assuming you’re usig the live paint bucket).