Live Paint - Stylising

[KungfoowiZ]

Hello Peeps!

I was wondering whether someone would know how to do this, I can't seem to figure it out myself.

After using the Live Trace and then turning my line art into a Live Paint Group for painting, I want to stylise particular parts of the line art.

However, when I for example apply a glow to a Direct Selected part of the Live Paint Group of the art, it always applies the glow to the entire Live Paint Group.

My question is, to anyone who would be kind enough to know, how could I apply a style effect (Shadow, Glow, etc's) to only a particular part of the Live Paint Group.

I have as yet been unable to apply a style effect to a particular piece when using a Live Paint Group, even when in isolation mode, selecting with the Direct Selection tool. It always seems to apply the style effect to the entire group every time.

Any help or tips on how to apply a style effect to a particular part of the Live Paint Group would be very useful to me, and I'm sure many other people too.

Thank you and take care.
Edward

[Lukas Engqvist]

If you want to apply styles you will have to expand appearance (at the price of the LivePaint editability). I would recommend making a copy of the live paint object and putting it on a layer wich you hide before expanding.

[KungfoowiZ]

Hello Lukas!

That's an excellent idea! I shall give that one a try, it should work nicely!

Thank you for the help and take care Lukas!
Edward

[GuyB]

Hi KungfoowiZ,

I'm not an expert in Illustrator, neither with LivePaint. But if the "Live Paint group" is like another "group", why not select the part you want to put the effect on with the Group Selection Tool ?

[KungfoowiZ]

Heya GuyB!

Thank you for the advice, I tried your way with the Group Selection tool and it still applies the glow or shadow to the entire Live Paint Group.

Lukas's trick does work well though. Simply expand the Live Paint Group once you're finished painting, apply selective glows and whathaveyou with the Direct or Group Selection tool.

Just keep in mind that when you try to create a Live Paint Group again out of whatever you've stylised, that you'll lose all those styles, except the general one for the whole object.

I would think that to preserve styles yet retain Live Paint functionality you would necessarily have to keep a copy of the Live Paint version, copy out out the parts you want to stylise as separate objects, as Lukas has mentioned. And hide any of those similar separate objects within the Live Paint object.

Maybe this has changed in Illy CS4, I'm not sure though. Perhaps some CS4 users could comment about this.

Take care.
Edward

[Lukas Engqvist]

Sorry can't have cake and eat it :(