Siluoette from solid shape background

[Lifewarped]

Im trying to cut out a portion of a shape using a specific outline... for example cutting a dog shape out of a square... Any ideas how to do this? Btw the shape is made of several Pencil dran lines, is there anyway to connect them?

(Im a programmer, rather new to AI... any help is greatly appreciated as im out of my element)

Glenn

 

[itchybug]

Life:

The answer to your question depends rather greatly on the version of Illustrator you are using.

A crude method (as long as all your pencil paths together fully enclose the dog) is to fill the square with a desired color, remove stroke and fill from the dog, select everything and go to the Pathfinder palette (Shitf-Ctrl-F9), click the button that hints "Divide" (Second row, left button in CS/CS2, don't remember where in 10).

Leave everything selected. Object>Ungroup.

Then with the group select tool (white arrow with +), click on the inside portion of the dog and delete. Now, you should have a knockout of a dog in the square.

This method will yield satisfactory results in every version back to v8.

For CS2, use the Live Paint tool combined with Pathfinder tools, Object>Live Paint, explore the options from there.

The terminology for what you are trying to do is "Compound Shapes", in case you want to look it up (Help>Illustrator Help). The Help Files are a mediocre but often helpful resource.

HTH

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

 

[Lifewarped]

Im currently running CS... not CS2...
I followed your instructions and i had an odd problem with it copnnecting the seporate paths to themselves... i need to join them to each other first... and i dont know enough to do that...

 

[itchybug]

Select the end anchors you wish to connect with the direct-select arrow (white, no +), you should have those anchors looking solid and the rest of the anchors on both paths hollow.

Now, Ctrl-J will join the paths by making a connecting path, Ctrl-Alt-Shift-J will average the coordinates and join the anchors at that point without inserting a connecting line.

HTH

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com