Illustrator: Bucket filling around continental borders?

[abrahadarba]

Morning all;

I am currently working on a planetary map for a game setting, and I have run into a problem...
I'm trying to fill a layer (containing line art describing coastal paths) with a shade, trying NOT to include the areas inside the 'continents' I have drawn on the layer. At the moment, my best effort is to have filled the continental areas with the shade in question (not the effect I'm trying to achieve); alternatively, I can fill the WHOLE LAYER with the shade I'm attempting to use, but I have yet to figure out how to exclude the continental areas from the bucket fill.

If I can select & fill the areas (I am attempting to designate as "ocean") around the continents with the shade I'm looking for this will make the process of developing the ocean side of the map so much easier. I hope I've described the process I'm trying to duplicate accurately enough.

Anyways, I'll try to figure this out on my own, but if someone out there could throw a hint at me it would be a great help.

Carry on,
abrahadarba

[Carnifex]

Not sure I understand whar you want to do but in Illustrator you work mainly with shapes you fill with color. You usually don't work with layers as you do in Photoshop. Can you post an image?

[Sapiento]

Place an ocean shape below the continents and fill the continent line art.

[Midgardsormr]

If you need coastal shapes cut out of the ocean, try using the Pathfinder tool. Make a rectangle to represent your ocean, place all of the landforms on top of it, and select everything. Then use the Pathfinder to subtract the landforms from the rectangle. You may want to make a backup of the landforms first because if I recall correctly, the straight subtract feature deletes the objects used for the cut-out. It's been a while since I last used Illustrator, so I don't remember the exact details, but if you experience with the different modes there you should find one that will do what you want.

Of course, you'll need to be careful thereafter to never nudge anything's position or your ocean will lose registration with the land.

[abrahadarba]

Thanks all,

...but sorted (kind-of): as Carnifex suggested, I'm working with shapes placed underneath the layer containing the coastal image. This is resulting in a series of concentric layers describing the depth of oceans (I'll have to find an elevation that I can saturate a background layer with before continuing with the deeper zones of water, but that's for later) placed underneath the coastal layer. At the moment I'm still tracing over work I did in photoshop, but once I'm done it'll get more imaginative (especially in regards to land formations - I won't post an image yet, because it's nowhere near finished). Once I've got a basic atlas I'll post some images.

Happy charting, fellows!