I have made a drawing with the pen tool. Most of the paths are unclosed. I would like to put a gradient stroke on the paths.
I don't seem to be able to join all of the paths together, which I assume is the first problem to solve. See below for my drawing.
I believe if the strokes are all separate then at best I will gradient each stroke individually which will not give me the effect I am looking for.
I think it may also have changed because I used the shape builder to fill it originally. So perhaps that has made a difference?
I'm using Illustrator CS5. I have tried using Unite, Join, etc via the pathfinder.
I don't want to merge it into one shape, i want it to stay as a line drawing as the shape will never have a fill. My intention is to put a gradient over the entire line drawing so it looks like it is shimmering.
Here is an example of what I would like to achieve (made in Photoshop).