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Keep in mind that with Live Paint objects, you're not just limited to solid colors. Fills can be gradients, patterns or solids, just as they can be with regular objects. But, if you want to change a fill after one has been applied, the process is a bit different from that of fills for regular objects. You can simply select the Live Paint object and then click on a swatch, but this will change the fills for all previously filled regions. The easier method is to keep the Live Paint Bucket tool selected, then click on a swatch (or create a custom fill) and click on the region you want to affect with the Live paint Bucket. (Note that there are other ways to change region fills on the fly without the Live Paint Bucket. We'll get to those methods in Part 2 of this series.)
Path/region modification
Another thing to keep in mind is that this process is completely editable. So, if you change your mind about a particular fill, you can just switch to a different swatch (including "None") and just fill that region with the new swatch.
You can also modify the shapes of the regions using standard selection/modification tools, even after the object has been converted to a Live paint object. For example, you might use the Direct Selection tool to move a point in a path, thus altering the shape of the path and the region it contains.
When you do modify segments of the path, this will alter the regions that contain the fills, which will be updated automatically to match the reshaped region. If the modification splits a previously formed region into two regions, both will take on the fill characteristics of the original. Below you see an example of this. The original Live Paint object is on the left. I then used the Direction Selection tool to drag a portion of the path across the object to split it into two regions.
And, if your modification causes you to lose a region, then the fill for that old region will disappear as well.
I should also mention that I've only used the Pencil tool in this article as an example for how to create simple, single-path Live Paint objects. But you aren't limited to this. You can create Live Paint objects out of any of the path creation tools, shapes or even outline text. And all of this will allow you to create incredibly complex shapes in just a few seconds.
Object expansion
When you're sure you're done with your object, click the "Expand" button up in the Control palette (or choose Object > Expand), and you'll have a collection of objects grouped together, which you can then manipulate together or individually as you would any other kind of object.
The great thing about this is that the new objects are created based on the Live Paint regions that you filled. Any unfilled regions or stray segments are simply eliminated, resulting in clean, simple vector objects. In the example below, the object on the left is a Live Paint object. You can see that it has an unfilled region, plus some stray path segments. But, when it's expanded (right), the unfilled region and the strays disappear.
So those are the basics of working with Live Paint to create complex objects from a single path. Next time around, we'll get deeper into this with the creation of multi-path objects, more fill options and methods for stroking path segments in Live paint objects. In the meantime, if you have any further questions, be sure to drop me a line or visit me in the Adobe Illustrator forum at DMN Forums by clicking here.
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