Layers in rigs

Hey, so I’ve been trying to create my rigs faster. I draw a character, then on a separate layer I trace it and all it’s parts using the polyline tool. Then my plan was to use distribute to layers, it breaks everything apart. Shapes I made with the polyline tool get broken, different lines forming the shapes get put on their own layer. I guess basically, all my lines are seen as their own element, even if they are connected to other lines.