: How to prevent having to redraw lines in Illustrator I do a lot of artwork in Illustrator, and am pretty experienced. However I find myself having redraw lines often with each new level of

@Fox8063795

If you're feeling adventurous, you could also consider using gradient meshes. Create your object, add points to the gradient mesh wherever you want shadowing / highlights / etc. and tweak then until you get the look you want. Meshes can range from comic book-style solids to amazingly photorealistic results.

Having said that, gradient meshes can get pretty complicated, and they take time and care to work right. Philip Regan is right in that Illustrator requires a fair amount of work to get things right, but it's worthwhile once you're done.

This is one of many great tutorials online for meshes; there are also a bunch of video-based ones if that's your preference.

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@Michele215

I'm not sure how you are generating that cube, but I think you are missing a trick here when it comes to working with Illustrator. Instead of having a base layer that is the outline of the object and then adding other lines, your object should be made up of three polygons, such that the outlines overlap, and then fill them in.

I don't think it is possible to give a general guide on how to overcome the general issue. Illustrator is as much about illusion as it is anything, and that illusion requires a fair amount of strategy. Each illustration is unique in its own way.

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