Live Paint doesn't work on Complicated Objects?

Question

I have never really figured out how to properly build an illustrator file in a way that it will fill properly so my only other option (that I know of) is to use Live Paint.  Unfortinately Live paint also wrecks all my line weights.  It also makes the object noneditable later down the road.  I found this out the hard way for a logo project at college and spent over 30 hours on it just trying to fiddle with the illustrator program, looking up tutorials that never seemed to work for me and nonstop frustration.
This time Live paint doesn't work at all. (I'm trying to paint in a more complicated object than a simple logo).  First off my object has gaps in it, and even when I click "Gap options" it doesn't appear to do anything and there are still gaps.  So I try to fill them in myself but this wrecks my line weights.  And finally Live paint appears to work but only on certain objects such as the eyes, the nose, annd the ears, yet it refuses to fill in the entire body of the animal I'm trying to colour in.  I drew this animal in illustrator with the pen tool and applied line weights with the line weight tool.  Yes there are numerous gaps in the image.
I have another project due really soon on a more complicated illustrator file and I can't even figure out how to colour it in properly!  Please help!  This is what it looks like as of now:
http://aprilsilverwolf.deviantart.com/art/Dhole-Lineart-414792208
Only imagine it not in a pdf but an illustrator file because yes I have the original and yes it's vector. 
Also I use Adobe illustrator CS6

Answer 1

I looked at your drawing and have a few suggestions:
As you have no doubt learned, Live Paint strokes cannot contain stroke profiles or other effects at the individual stroke level. There are 2 solutions:
1. Set the stroke on the Live Paint object to a very small width, then add a stroke attribute to the LP object using the Appearance Panel. There, you can assign a global stroke that will effect any paths on the LP object that have any stroke applied.
2. Assign no strokes to the LP Object. Instead, duplicate the LP object, release Live Paint and assign stroke attributes to the duplicated lines. I have found this provides better control of stroke attributes, making them independent of the Live Paint Object.
I agree, the "Gap Options" feature does not always work well. That's another reason I prefer to handle the lines and fills separately, so I can manually fill any gaps by extending the lines using the pencil or pen tool.