Quick Way to Create Silhouette From Vector Drawing

[skmwrp]

Going the opposite direction than I think most folks ask. We have a character, drawing using vector brushes in AD (hundred of lines), and want to convert it to a simple, filled in, black silhouette, so we can see the shape. Tried rasterizing & fill (too many openings), magnetic lasso (can't even figure out how that works because with a file of simple 100% lines and transparent background, it doesn't come close to tracing anything), hand paint.

Anyone have a neat & quick trick to accomplish this?

Thanks!

[skmwrp]

Okay, just stumbled upon Selection Brush Tool. Seems to work pretty nice and doesn't run out to select surrounding areas even those the lines are not closed.

[v_kyr]

Group all related curves together and then setup a fillcolor for the grouped objects.

[skmwrp]

Just now, v_kyr said:

Group all related curves together and then setup a fillcolor for the grouped objects.

Okay, don't know how to do this, so we'll look into it.

Now, we want to fill the area between the lines, inside the space of the character, not change the color of the lines themselves. If that makes sense.

[v_kyr]

You should maybe show a screenshot of that Character for a better clarification.

[StuartRc]

There are several ways to do this:

1. Make sure you have Grouped Objects or select the outline Content
2. Use the Recolour Adjustment layer to change the colour of all the objects at once (None destructive!) set Lightness to -100. If you want a raster version just duplicate and raster the results (R key!)
3. Try with 'Layer Effects' and Colour Overlay (set to 100 Black or white or other!) Again you can rasterize but get option of preserve FX (Which is what you would want!)
4. Select everything and turn to black..Sounds easy but you may not get the results you expect!

 

It's really useful..I use these techniques all the time to change colours of vectors.

If you want something more elaborate....check the object Construction bit in this thread: here!

[skmwrp]

Boy, would love to give an example of what I'm talking about, but I can't get the effin' file to save to iCloud from my iPad.

Why is this still so difficult?

[skmwrp]

Okay, he's a very simple example of what we're trying to do. The actual drawings are much more complicated, but we won't be posting them here for proprietary reasons.

We are trying to get from vector drawing on left, made up of a bunch of brush strokes, to a simple, filled silhouette, like on the right…

 

Clearly, rasterizing & using the Fill tool won't work, as it fills the entire page.

Anyway, we used the Selection Brush Tool and it got use where we needed to go.

Still don't know what "fill color" means, despite searching.

(And, My God! It was more effort to get the danged file off our iPad!)

[StuartRc]

I see now...That's a slightly different issue. With drawings like this I tend to plan for a a solid base in the first instance..to sit behind!...