melomeli: Doodle Style Tutorial in Adobe Illustrator

I start with my traced sketch that I drew with the Pen Tool and a stroked line.

Next, I drag my layer from the Layer Palette onto the Create New Layer button. This will create a duplicate layer.

I want to turn the visibility off on my new layer because I won’t be working on it right now. Click on the little icon that looks like an eye to the left of the layer to make it invisible.

Now, I select the original layer and use my new plug-in. Go to Select > Object > Open Paths. This will select all the lines that aren’t closed shapes.

Since I’m going to use this layer as my colored shape layer and the top layer as my line art, I want to delete the all the Open Paths. So, I hit delete on the keyboard.

Next, I select all. Go to Select > All or use the keyboard shortcut Command/Control A. With everything selected, I put a fill color on the shapes and eliminate the stroke color.

Now, I turn the visibility back on for my other layer.

With both layers visible, I want to select all again. After you have selected everything, go to Object > Group. Grouping the objects will pull them all onto the top layer. The reason I want to do this is that some of my shapes need to overlap some of my lines. So, I need everything on one layer to do that.

Next, I want to add a Brush stroke to all my lines. To do this I’ll need to select all my lines. Yeah, I should have done this before I merged my layers, but I like to do things the hard way. Anyway, select one of your lines, then go to Select > Same > Stroke Color.

Then, open your Brush Palette and pick the brush you want to use. I used one of the defaults. You may need to adjust the stroke weight after you pick the brush.

I still need to move my shapes around, so some of my shapes are overlapping the lines. To do this, I select the objects I want to move and use the Object > Arrange > Send to Back.

Here’s my illustration with everything arranged correctly.

Next, I want to turn my lines into shapes. To do this, I’m going to use the Flatten Transparency. Select all, and go to Object > Flatten Transparency.