How to override color on illustrations/icons that can't be flattened in Sketch App?

Question

I'm trying to create a styleguide according to atomic design. For this I'm trying to create a set of icons where I can override the color so I can use them in different sets.

I made an icon of a plane using shapes and strokes:

Normally I can use a mask to override the color on the icon. But I can't use folders as masks. When I try to union/flatten this icon, things go wrong:

Is there a way to fix my icon or a way around this so I can still use a mask for the override?

Answer 1

You can fix your icon and mask it with color symbol.

Follow these steps to create simple line illustration to mask with color symbols:

1. Draw illustration elements using vectors with empty fill property and thick borders (10) with color (orange)

2. After you complete drawing all elements using vector, combine all illustration elements to single combined shape. I used Union to combine shapes in the given example. Check this video to learn more about boolean operations in Sketch.

3. Select the combined shape and convert to outlines (Layer => Convert to outlines). Convert to outlines will convert lines to solid shape filled with color instead of border.

4. Now you can mask the icon with color symbols.