Unable to fill design with color entirely due to anchor point issues.

[CheeseHead05]

Hi,

I am new to illustrator and not proficient yet with creating the many layers for the different pieces of artwork used for filling in with color. I have a few but a professional or expert would have probably made more layers. The issue at hand is that when I attempt to fill a piece of the artwork in with color, it only colors along the section of a path and anchor point instead of the whole piece. How I traced my artwork is by making many anchor points and many are not continuous and I am almost certain that's the issue.. Any tips would be appreciated. If you can help, I can send the actual file.

[Larry G. Schneider · Accepted solution]

In order to fill any path it must be a closed path. You are correct in thinking it must be completely connected. You can use the Direct Select tool and Shift key to collect all the paths which are used to define your fill area and use Cmd(Ctrl)-J to join them.

[CheeseHead05]

I am definitely going to try you suggestion today when I get a chance. But in the mean time, wouldn't your method color the entire artwork one color instead of piece by piece based on their respective layers?

[Doug A Roberts · Accepted solution]

You should probably read a bit of the manual at this stage:

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/illustrator/using/painting-fills-strokes.html

[Doug A Roberts]

A fundamental aspect of filling objects in Illustrator is that open paths will fill up to a line between the two endpoints. So you might fill a path and it end up like this, for instance:

A coloured image may be created by layering closed objects on top of each other (or abutting), or more intuitively (for some users) by drawing linework and then creating fills from it using the live paint bucket (K).

If I'm barking up the wrong tree, please share screenshots with selected objects demonstrating the issue.

[CheeseHead05]

That is a perfect example and my situation. Instead of the whole square being colored, it's colored like that.

[Monika Gause]

Maybe take a look at the live paint tool.

[CheeseHead05]

For future reference, for the live paint tool, can I do away with layers - meaning, can I trace my artwork all on 1 layer and just do live paint? That seems like an easier method.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Please read this: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/live-paint-groups.html

If you want individual help for your situation, please show something and tell us exactly how you want this to work.

[CheeseHead05]

I somewhat figured out the live paint feature but I hit a road block. I know that the paths are supposed to be closed but what happens if that's not how I want my design to look? If you look at the pictures of the wing, the part that's pink- how did the color just stop midway? How can I fix this issue without changing my picture?

please note-

the 3 boxes still have dashes even when I select the black outline box. 

 

[Doug A Roberts]

It's ending the paint area at a predetermined gap size at that point. Double-click on the live paint tool to adjust the gap detection options.

If you want single colour areas to end arbitrarily, create paths with no stroke where you want the area to stop and add them to the live paint group.

As for the diagonal lines in the boxes above the tool, this seems to be because there are no swatches in your file?

If there are swatches, you can use the left and right arrow kets to cycle through them.

[CheeseHead05]

Thank you for your suggestions. What do you mean create a path with no stroke. I'm still a rookie at this.

[Monika Gause]

To edit the gap options in live paint, go to Object > Live paint > Gap options.

A no fill and no stroke path is a path that has a fill and stroke of None (the swatch with the red strike through). There have been links posted in this thread, please read them.

[CheeseHead05]

Thanks to you all for the much needed helped. I now have a fully colored picture. =0)