slegy
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Illustrator Rope Brush
I'm trying to create a rope style brush in Illustrator. I'm following the tutorial at: http://vectorguru.com/tutorials/012-drawing-vector-rope-in-illustrator.html. I'm getting varying results. In one of my efforts the Pathfinder/Unite appears to work, but when I do an Object-->Path-->Outline Stroke, all three pieces get outlined. When I'm able to get by that part and apply the Pathfinder/Intersect, I lose all the strokes. Is there something wrong in the tutorial or, more likely, what might I be doing wrong? The attached file is how the project looks after Object-->Path-->Outline Stroke.
rope_base.pdf
rope_base.pdf
Opps! In my illustration, I see that I missed one of the places to cut. However I bet you can figure it out.
ASKER
Sorry for the delay. I had to deal with another crisis. I guess I didn't explain my problem clearly. I just started over again and am experiencing the same problem. I draw my three shapes. I use Pathfinder to "unite" them. I them outline the shape with a 2 pt stroke. I then duplicate the shape 6 times. I then add the guides. I then apply Object - Path - Outline Stroke. When I do that, each of the three pieces of each copy get outlined. If the 3 pieces were "united," why does each individual piece still get outlined?
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ASKER
Oops! Thanks for waking me up
Coffee is good, cheers
Here is why you are turning your strokes into shapes.
If you trim a stroke, it will always give you a boxed edge and you can't butt that up smoothly with another section.
On the other hand, a shape can be cut along the outlines and create a miter that will butt up cleanly against a matching section.
Now draw your guides like it shows in the tutorial, and cut where ever a line crosses a guide. Discard all of the objects outside of the two guides.
If done correctly, the cuts on one guide will line up exactly with the cuts on the other.
Give that a try and let us know if you run into any trouble.