INFOGRAPHIC SERIES - Toothpaste with Gleamies

Create a toothpaste effect with any sparkly colors. It only requires on path and 4 strokes on that one path and the rest is all the Appearance Panel magic. And you can use this Graphic Style on any Path you create. Add a gleamie for highlights. 

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Start with a line. Add a red 20pt stroke. Open the Appearance Panel from the Window Menu. 

Select the line, click the add stroke button at the bottom. It will add a stroke to the top of the red. Make the newly added stroke WHITE.  

Add a Transform effect under Effect>Distort & Transform> Transform. Set the Vertical Move to -3mm. This will move the white line up 3 mm. 

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Select the line, click the add stroke button at the bottom. It will add a stroke to the top of the white stroke. Make the newly added stroke BLUE.  ​

Add a Transform effect under Effect>Distort & Transform> Transform. Set the Vertical Move to -6mm. This will move the white line up 6 mm. ​

This is what the red stroke, with the white stroke offset of -3mm, plus the blue stroke offset of -6mm. All the same line, just 3 strokes on the same line. 

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Add a 4th stroke to the selected line. Make it white, 10 pt stroke weight. 

Add a Transform Effect with an offset of -7mm. ​

All 4 strokes applied. Red stroke 20 pt, with the white stroke 20 pt offset of -3mm, plus the blue stroke 20 pt offset of -6mm. Blue stroke 10 pt with a -7mm offset. 

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To save the Toothpaste style, open the Graphic Styles panel from the Window Menu. Drag the line into the Styles Panel and name the style. 

Now you can apply this to any path you create and not have to recreate the effect. 

​When you apply an effect and rotate it, you will notice that the effect will always appear the same no matter which way you rotate it. ​

When you apply an offset, it is absolute. If you want to rotate the effect, select the line and choose Expand Appearance from the Object menu.

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You can apply the effect to outlined type. Draw any path with Pencil, Pen or Brush tools and then apply the toothpaste effect to it. ​

Draw a gleamie by double clicking on the Star tool. Set the Radius 1 to 25mm, set Radius 2 to 2 mm. Set the number of points to 4 and click OK. 

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Fill the gleamie to 15% gray. Copy and rotate the gleamies onto the toothpaste for that shine and sparkle.