Day 25: Applying Live Paint

By Tony Soh

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With Live Paint, you can freely paint your artwork. It is like painting a kid’s coloring book where you have the line art and you start filling them will different colors. In this lesson, you will see how to break a star into different segments using Live Paint.

Creating a Beveled Star using Live Paint

I will show you an example of using Live Paint to draw a beveled star. Let’s turn on Smart Guides to make snapping of points easier. Go View>Smart Guide to turn on Smart Guides.

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About The Author: Tony Soh

Hi. I'm the founder of Vector Diary. Illustrator is my passion and I have written numerous tutorials on illustrator helping people learn illustrator. My most popular tutorial on learn illustrator has been a hit. It makes learning illustrator so easy and has benefited more than 20,000 people worldwide. Also, I've revealed some of my secret techniques in the premium tutorials. So don't forget to check it out!

Read more by Tony Soh

• Illustrator Tutorial: Perfect Silhouette with Live Trace
• Illustrator Tip #16: How to Make a Beveled Star
• Day 23: Applying 3D Extrude & Bevel
• 13 Amazing Gradient Mesh Tutorials
• Illustrator Blend Tool Experiments

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+Add Comment16 Comments

1. 
   Erika August 7th

   I just want you to know that I am REALLY enjoying and appreciating this series that you’re doing, and I hope that you choose to extend it just because it’s so awesome. There’s so much out there about PS, that it’s refreshing to see some basic AI stuff out there. You can do all of the advanced stuff there is, but a basic tutorial will always teach you the stuff you manage to overlook!

2. 
   ArtConch August 10th

   Thanks again for another brilliant lesson

3. 
   Khawla August 11th

   Thanks a lot for this lesson. I did not know how to use Live Paint. It is a great tool.

4. 
   Harto November 5th

   Great tip !!

5. 
   ggaatt November 28th

   lol hahaha thanx, before this tutorial i was doing it just like you say in conclusion – drawing 10 triangles and had problems with aligning them. Now i can do it fast and easy

6. 
   Jeffery Wright June 9th

   the pen tool just deletes the anchor points.

7. 
   josh noname June 12th

   Yeah, how do you avoid deleting the anchor points with the pen tool?

8. 
   josh noname June 12th

   The tutorial works exactly as described if you use the Line Tool after making the shape- maybe it was a typo?

9. 
   Tony Soh June 12th

   You can use both the line tool or pen tool. But make sure the lines snap to the star and don’t leave any gaps for it to work.

10. 
    josh noname June 13th

    The tutorial suggests using the Pen Tool to connect the top anchor of the star to the bottom anchor. The trouble is, when you initially click the top anchor, the pen tool auto-deletes the anchor point. I believe you have to use the line tool in addition to the pen tool. Could you clarify?

11. 
    Tony Soh June 15th

    Hi josh, your right. Using the pen tool will require you to lock the star layer to prevent deleting the point. Using the line tool will solve the problem. I have updated it. Thanks.

12. 
    sumit singh July 28th

    adobe illustrator is very good site to work.

13. 
    Tomas Vateha April 21st

    really great site!

14. 
    Mathias December 7th

    A very simple question i wish you reply.
    ¿Why did you put it as FREE, if it ask me for register for a paid account at the bottom of each article?
    Also, the articles are really short, so i believe that you cut them?
    Anyway, its a nice serie of tutorials, but i think you should put them FREE!!!

15. 
    Angela Leung February 7th

    Please Help !! I am using CS5.1 when I was filling in different shades for all segments using “live paint”, there’s only one colour tone… my star looks flat…

16. 
    Marielle Pteroudis April 4th

    I am trying to apply the Live Paint to one area, but it goes to the whole star.. I am using cs5. Any idea anyone what am I doing wrong??