just started using illustrator and need help like bad

[Kristattack]

can some one please tell me what im doing wrong?
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/1310/picture6qs.png

why dont they fill entirely? they're all connected and everything

the only way i was ever able to get close to a good coloring job was to use the live paint tool but u can still see lines through objects that should be infront of them

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/6118/picture7g.png

i feel like im missing something very fundemental to using illustrator

pleeeese help this is extremely frustrating as im getting absolutely nowhere

 

[citizenzen]

why dont they fill entirely? they're all connected and everything

Apparently they aren't all connected and everything.

Do you know about the three different kinds of arrow tools and how they select objects differently? If not, read up on them and use them to find the paths that seem closed, but aren't.

 

[chaosbunny]

why dont they fill entirely? they're all connected and everything

Seems like they are connected, but most of the vectors are not "closed". It looks to me like you want the entire face skin colored, but only the line at the chin is drawn and illustrator only fills the space that is defined buy that.

For example you can make the line for the chin and then just roughly add more points to close it & make it as big as the rest of the face, since you can put the hairs in front of it anyway.

I hope this is understandable - it's difficult to explain in a non-native language.

 

[Zoreke]

Welcome to illustrator!

It is basic that your objects are closed so you can paint them following therir shape, if the object is open and you apply a fill illustrator will connec the end points witha straight line.

Close your shapes and then you can send things back and front to cover each other.

Yes this is basic and once you master this you can then learn about clipping masks...

P.S. the art looks cool!

Z

 

[Hermes Monster]

YouTube is your friend! Honestly, they have 1000s of tutorials that really helped me get the basics. Also keep an eye on vectortuts.com, also an excellent resource for tutorials and downloadable content