Not able to fill outlined graphic

[handrawn]

So...you're actually outlining your art twice? Once as an outline, and once as shapes to fill in with color?

if you use Larry's method you can generate your shapes from a duplicate layer of your lines - that way they are separate but you don't draw them twice

that said there was a great demonstration [which of course I can't find] by gnurf of how to use very loose and quick, separately drawn, colouring shapes - and compensate for them being too large by using feathering/blur and the odd tweak with the shape tool

[EJ]

The lack of vector fill in Xara has been lamented for many years. At least three in my case. There are ways around it as people here have shown and they do become easier with practice. However, they are still only work-arounds.

True vector fills are a delight to use-especially on a complex vector drawing. If you want to use them then try Corel Draw (X4 or later) or if on a limited budget try Inkscape. Both work very well. The only problem with these programs is that they do not talk well with each other or with Xara so it is very frustrating to prepare your drawing in Xara and then try and use the others for the fills. I guess in time Xara may develop its own smart fill but I'm not holding my breath.

cheers, Erik

[handrawn]

well... you can fill vector shapes very effectively in xara, you do have to use the 'break shapes' method, and you have to have fully enclosed lines, but in fact this is how the program is designed to work and it has the advantage that you get a complete fill with no messing around with thresholds/zoom/gap_fill parameters that you certainly need to get your head round in Inkscape [Corel I am not that familiar with]

I was very enthusiastic about the inkscape vector fill when it first came out, but the number of times it left out fill in corners and the like, because it needed changed settings between fills, put me off - I work very fast, I have hundreds of shapes to fill, I like the xara way of getting them all at once and then colouring them at will - that said, it might be possible for xara to come up with a tool that automates the 'copy/convert_lines_to_shape/add_shapes/break_shapes' routine and that would get my vote - although if you have keystrokes set up right you can do it very quickly now [in Pro version], so it would not be at the expense of anything more 'useful'

[EJ]

Hi Steve,
I agree with what you say, especially in cases where there are many shapes to fill. Inkscape certainly is annoying with its present requirement to fine tune the fills. Interestingly Corel does not have that problem. There the fills go right into the corners to the limit. Maybe an advantage of a commercial program?

Anyway my note was simply to let people know that there are programs with vector fills available so I'll leave it at that.

cheers, Erik

[handrawn]

yes - in fact most editors have a [flood]fill of one sort or another except xara...

as a slight aside I use raster progams to do lineart but raster or vector to colour depending on project - raster programs often have the facility to flood fill all empty areas in one go on a separate layer - do this in black, export at a decent resolution and import it into xara, you can bitmap trace it and there are your shapes to colour - this is how I used to do it when I first got xara, until I got into boolean - I still do it occasionally, don't think its any quicker but 'change is as good as a rest' as they say ......