Abode Illustrator help

[Jigglyman]

I have always found that the Illustrator tutorials are very practical - it's great that I can create a 3D-like bowl of fruit, but how many applications will this have later?

So, I haven't found much Illustrator help for my needs. This is why I turn to you. This is what I can do so far (I used the brush tool only):





My questions:

How can you color it it (the paint fill won't work well for me, it doesn't fill between lines, it fills the area a line surrounds, is there a way to fix this)? How do you erase spare lines (see jawline for a careless bump or two)? How do you connect lines together (see top of hair)? Can you add speech bubbles, etc.?

Basically, can you create an entire comic in Illustrator, or do you need Photoshop intervention?

I've used Flash forver, but the wobblyness of the lines is starting to get to me. I could create my entire comic in Flash, so I guess I kind of want Illustrator to be an everything-in-one program. Plus, if everything is Illustratorized, then enlarging images will be really easy.

Please help, and thanks in advance.

[TYL]

Ok, first and foremost stop using the brush tool... if you're gonna do Illustrator you have to suck it up and learn how to use the pen tool. The pen tool draws shapes rather then lines, much smoother, and color can be applied to them. When drawing in illustrator, try and imagine you are creating a peice of art with construction paper-essentially lots of colored shapes layered on top of each other.

To get rid of excess lines, just use the Direct Selection tool (the white mouse icon) and move the points around.

Keep in mind that vectors are shapes and lines.. not pixels. The difference is very pronounced, and a lot more plaiing is involved for the construction of the peice.

[Jigglyman]

But then how do I get brush strokes? That's the style I want to use, and is it possible in Illustrator at all?