Making Interlocking Rings with Live Paint

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I wept tears of joy softly into my pillow...

I've been doing battle with interlocking shapes for so long... so many years of wanton vector carnage only to find this incredibly easy solution.

Mordy and Deke need to take a trip to the middle east. We'd have that whole mess sorted out in a week.

Gradient Mesh Feedback

Dear Obiwan,

This is the most recent Illustrator article I could find to post this comment. (DekePod has rather become PhotoshopPod lately... not necessarily a bad thing in my book but I think there is a bit more to computer graphics.... I heard that "Amen!", Mordy). Variety ( = Illustrator Vectory) is the spice of life.

Your work on Gradient Mesh is stunning. I just reviewed your stuff on this on Lynda.com and... Wow! The possibilities you demonstrated amaze me! My jaw is warped and liquified somewhere on the floor and I'm sure I will eventually get around to recovering it sometime or other :-) Thanks enormously (think Amazon + Deke head = supercallafragalisticespe alladociously!) for that. Totally wicked cool dude! :-)

I hope Gradient Mesh makes it into your new Illustrator 1-on-1 book so I can easily work it into my classes... at least as a "Pearl of Wisdom" section, if not as part of a stunning chapter on gradients and patterns.

where did my jaw go anyway?,
Thomas

Thomas Benner
The Art Institute of Austin

I hear ya

And you know, I'm a big Illustrator fan. Well, admirer. Well, masochistic slave boy. B/c let's face it, no relationship with Illustrator is altogether equitable.

The Illustrator dekePods have had lower views than the Photoshop ones, so at the moment we're rather pandering to the masses. But we'll come back to it.

Gradient Mesh will be part of the book. At least, it's part of the 50-page outline . . .

Thanks so much for this

I've been doing this another way for too long - effectively: Duplicate Layer (one for fills, one for strokes); Pathfinder>Divide; ungroup; recolor; regroup; pray you never have to reposition any elements...

This way is ace. It's fast and flexible. I never realized Live Paint could be used for this type of work. Now I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon drawing Celtic knots! Thanks again.

I remember that conversation...

About the rings. Yeah. Funny thing. It's all true -- exactly how Deke told the story...

By the way, no need to delete those stroke segments -- you can just set their color to none. That way, if you do end up moving the rings around, they update, etc.

I am considering doing a 3-part series on Live Paint. Alas, that feature is sooooooo misunderstood.

Mordy Golding
http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com

Olympic rings update

Mordy's absolutely right. Per his brilliant insight, I've adjusted Steps 4 and 7 as well as the conclusion. It makes a big difference in terms of the flexibility of the technique. If the figures don't match my descriptions, refresh.

I bow to you, Live Paint Master! And, yeah, thanks for making me work an extra hour on Sunday. But I guess that's okay cuz you posted your comment on Saturday(!). Please, Lord, don't be smitin'.

After sundown Deke, after sundown...

Besides, we all know that the live paint geeks only come out at night...

Mordy Golding
http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com

Almost Olympic.ai Link

Not to be a pain in the ass, whiney, crybaby, beotch, but what's up with this!
(To download such a file for your own use, scroll to the end of this doc and click the "Almost-Olympic.ai" link.)

I don't think there is a link. Not even an "almost"..
Maybe Darwin knows where it is.

Thanks for the fun and games
Colleen, you are the Queen Bee.

L

The link is above your comment

There was a problem with the link, which is fixed now. And I went ahead and added another link in the context of the article so you don't have to scroll down.

For some reason, both IE and Safari want to change the extension, so you may need to reset it to ".ai" after downloading to open the file in Illustrator.

Oh, and don't worry. I like "whiney, crybaby, beotch." It makes me feel . . . like I'm talking to me!

The link and pahh-henis

So WTF. Safari decides to change the file to .ps
Thanks for the corrected link.
man computers are, like, sooo stooopid.

One more thing, I just read the thread on censorsh*t ooops.
Reminds me of the late George Carlin's list of words ya can't say.
Maybe something like the Inconclastic Controversy. (see Byzantine Icons)
Fortunately the more enlightened usually find a way around this sort of myopia.

A friend of mine (who is a Saab expert tech) likes to use the euphemism of Pah Henis. It never fails to elicit a chuckle.