Can't fill, shapes not right, trouble joining lines

[cgfiend]

I've attached a file of my design that I need to combine into shapes so that I can fill the various areas with colors, but I've not had luck getting the lines to match up and/or creating objects that allow me to fill with color. I would greatly appreciate it if someone would take some time and readjust the intersections and shapes so each area can be filled. I've tried some of the tips on the forum, but can't seem to figure it out. Your help is greatly appreciated. If you can explain what I was doing wrong as well that would help too. Thank you.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hello CG and welcome.

You seem to have been getting quite messed up with your lines and shapes. It's best to work in shapes (closed lines) initialy, to get the main filled areas, then once you've got these use lines as highlights etc.

Your image revamped is attached.

Egg

[cgfiend]

Thank you very much for the advice. I traced a JPG I had made. Big mistake as I can see. Your advice is well taken. I appreciate your help.

[irpresley]

Egg can you give the specific steps you converted the eagle into separate shapes? I used several overall commands and could not get each section as a separate shape to fill.
Or - did you place lines over the given shapes then break?

irpresley

[Egg Bramhill]

irpresley
Unfortunately I can't give specific steps as the original file held both unclosed lines and lines converted to shapes. In the main I just redrew the eagle using the supplied file as a guide.
Egg

[fyip]

Hello!
I'm brand new to Xara Xtreme, and forums for that matter. So pardon the "ignorance!"

Forum question: I have a question similar to the one that began this thread, but a bit different. So I replied here to ask my question (below). Is this okay? Or should I have begun and new thread?

Question on fills:
I've been working for hours on a simple yin-yang symbol. I have tried many different methods including drawing a 400pix circle with 2 200pix circles inside, all aligned centrally and vertically - smaller circles to establish the curves of the yin-yang. Figured I'd break off opposite halves of the small circles to create the "s" curve inside the symbol. Had trouble breaking points and pieces, even after reading the forums and tutorials (I changed small circle to editable shape and tried breaking at top and bottom; couldn't get 'break point' icon to activate...)
Later, I somehow managed to get the correct lines to create the yin-yang symbol, and tried to break the 2 halves of the symbol (along the inner curve) in half. No luck without drawing a line down the center.

Started over with a circle, managed to break it in half and separate. Then added the inner "s" curve to the half circle to create half the yin-yang symbol. Connected and grouped/joined (tried both) the lines, converted it to editable shape (and tried convert line to shape) so that I can fill it with black, and no luck! I can't fill! I've tried this last method over and over and over, following tutorials and suggestions from this forum and can't seem to figure out what I'm missing. I can't fill by dragging a color, color editor, color gallery, etc.

I simply want to know how to make workable halves of the yin-yang symbol so that I can further add details to each half before adding them back together.

Sorry for the length of this post! Thanks for any advice!

[glenngosack]

try this mini-tut
I tried posting as a jpg.. hope it shows, if not the xar file is attached

[Ron Duke]

Nice tut, Glenn!
ron

[fyip]

Thank you so much for your easy to follow tutorial!
I got it down in under 5 minutes - after spending all day the day before! I see that I need to think in terms of shapes and not lines - that's where I went wrong ...

AWESOME help - I appreciate it!

Fyip

[glenngosack]

Glad to have been some help