This article gives step-by-step instructions on finding and utilizing specific tools in Adobe Illustrator to color designs. It walks through the process of creating a colored rocket, providing detail about how to find and select colors, use the live paint tool, and manage different layers.
Key Insights
- When tracing and coloring a design, it's important to manage layers properly. If elements of the design appear to be missing, they may have inadvertently been left in another layer. By unlocking all layers and selecting the missing pieces, users can drag these elements back into the desired layer.
- The live paint tool in Adobe Illustrator allows users to color different parts of their designs. To use this tool, select the live paint bucket from the gallery, then select the color to be used. The tool will create a live paint group, which can be colored by clicking on the desired section of the design.
- Creating a backup layer is a recommended step when using the live paint tool. This allows the original design to be saved and pulled from for future modifications. To create a backup layer, users should copy the design, create a new layer titled "backup," and paste the design into this layer.
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In this video, we're going to be filling our rocket with the colors we've created from our swatches. So let's begin by unlocking our “Traced Rocket” layer, and we'll hit CTRL+A to select all of our elements. We're going to remove the Stroke by selecting None. If we look closely, we'll see that unfortunately our window has been left in another layer, and this can sometimes happen when we have multiple layers and we're creating multiple shapes.
It's important to recognize how to bring these elements back into the appropriate layer. Therefore, let's unlock our “Color Swatches” layer and “Rocket Sketch” layer to locate these elements. If we select one part of the window, we'll see from the layer indicator that it's within our Rocket Sketch layer. We'll click the drop-down, select the top ellipse, hold Shift, select the bottom ellipse, and simply drag all of these elements into our “Traced Rocket” layer.
Next, we'll relock our “Rocket Sketch” layer and “Color Swatches” layer, and let's also hide the Rocket Sketch layer so we can only see the rocket we've created. From here, with “Traced Rocket” selected, let's hit CTRL+A to select all. Again, with our Stroke selected, we'll choose None. Next, we want to use the Live Paint Tool.
We can find the Live Paint Tool in the Toolbar with the Shape Builder Tool, and we'll select the Live Paint Bucket. From here, we can click to convert this element into a Live Paint Group. Remember that this is a destructive change, so if we want to save a version of the rocket for future editing, we should copy it and place it in a backup layer.
To do this, we'll hit V on the keyboard, then hit CTRL+C to copy. Next, we'll create a new layer, title it “Backup, ” and hit ENTER. If we zoom out, within our Backup layer, we'll hit CTRL+V to paste, and let's simply drag our backup rocket to the right-hand side and give it a 0.5-pixel Stroke so that we can identify it later. From here, we can also hide the Backup layer so it doesn’t appear in the interface.
Returning to the “Traced Rocket” layer, we can again hit CTRL+A and we're now ready to begin Live Painting. To do this, we’ll again utilize the Live Paint Bucket Tool. To select the color we want to start with, we can use ALT on the keyboard to sample a color. In this case, I'll sample the dark green and begin coloring the left side of the rocket.
Once we first click, the object becomes a Live Paint Group. Next, we’ll color the right side using the lighter green. We can do this either by using ALT to sample the green color or by clicking Fill, opening the swatches drop-down, and selecting the appropriate color group for Live Paint.
From here, with the Live Paint Bucket, we can use the left and right arrow keys to toggle colors. In this case, we’ll choose the light green and click. Next, we’ll continue filling in with other colors. We'll use the darkest green to fill the bottom of the rocket. If we click and drag across, we’ll fill every intersection we come across.
We'll do the same for the top of the rocket. With this darker color, let's also fill in the rectangles on the left-hand side. For the remainder of the fuel jet, let's press the right arrow once to move to the next color and fill the remaining fuel jet sections, including the bottom and right-side rectangles.
Next, let’s move one more color over and fill the second fuel jet with this color. Then, scroll to the lightest green and use it to color the right side of the rocket. From here, we’ll step back one color to fill the left side and also use this color for the right side of the window. For the left side of the window, go one step further left in the color sequence.
As we scroll down, we may notice we forgot to color the bottom right section. Since it's difficult to recall which exact color we used, we can hold ALT to sample the correct gray from the window and fill that section. We'll do the same for the bottom rectangles, sampling and applying as needed. As you can see, we use a combination of ALT and the left/right arrow keys to paint our image.
Finally, if we zoom in, we’ll want to color our center window. Feel free to use either the left or right green color. In this case, I'll use the left green and fill each section of the center window.
For the center lines, we’ll sample the right-hand gray of the window and color those segments as well. Now, we can zoom out and see that our rocket is fully colored.
To deselect, we'll hit V on the keyboard and click outside the artwork. We now have our finished rocket.
Well done. As a final step, let's unlock our Color Swatches layer and move the swatches to the top, then hide the layer from view and relock it. If we zoom out, we can now see our rocket centered in the image.
Let's now save our work by hitting CTRL+S on the keyboard. In the next video, we’ll begin drawing our exhaust.
See you there!