Illustrator Infill Question

[ousniper]

Hello,
I will try to explain my problem the best I can and hope that I am clear. I am wanting to engrave an image of an animal that I traced with the pen tool in illustrator. I want the inside to be engraved, but not certain parts (like between the legs, from the body to the ground, etc.) Now when I bring the file to the GF, it shows one solid shape to be engraved. The area I do not want engraved shows as a solid mass (ie i am only getting whats inside the overall outline to engrave, not the shape of the animal only).

I am assuming it has something to do with clipping masks maybe? Any help would be much appreciated!

p.s. I have tried going in and infilling the areas I do not want engraved with white, but the overall engrave is still like a silhouette without leaving the white parts untouched.

[geek2nurse]

If you used the pen tool, then you’ve created a vector image. You probably need to subtract the inside shapes from the outer shape using the boolean functions – otherwise the GF just sees them as more shapes to engrave. (Fill is fill; the color doesn’t make a difference.)

[yoyodyne2112]

Select every element that forms the boundary of your intended engrave area, make the selection a compound path, then delete any stroke weights assigned, leaving only the fill.