Join line to define object

Question

Hi,
i'm trying to create a rope under Illustrator CS5.
for that i created the usual "S" line and multiply it in order to create the rope effect.
now i would like to join 2 "S" line together to create a new shape in which i can fill with a color. In that way i will be able to create an alternated colored rope.
however i have some problem to join 2 "S" line in order to create the shape to fill.
Do you have an idea on the best method to do that ?
thx.

Answer 1

what Jetalmage wrote set the filling color at the beginning and you can't change it later on...you have to recreate a new rope from the coloring step...
Can't understand what you're saying here. For clarity: When you create a Brush, the dialog provides a Colorization option. Using that feature allows you to change the color of a Brush Effect at the object level any time you want. So you can use one Brush to create ropes (wires, whatever) of any color. For example, note that the artwork of the Brushes shown below are all built in grayscale. The color of the individual wire insulations is applied at the object level, as you would for any ordinary stroke. Thus, the two Brushes that are applied to path 4 can be used to make a wire of any maincolor/tracecolor combination. The colorization options are described in online Help, and are even illustrated in the Brush Options dialog itself.
So no, you do not have to create a separate Brush for each color rope (if that's what you are saying).
Regarding joining paths: Join now works without having to "direct select" endpoints with the white pointer. You can just select the paths you want to join, and the Join command will join them at their nearest endpoints. You can override this by selecting the endpoints you want to join when they are not the nearest pair.
JET