I drew my entry for this week's Illustration Friday at Starbucks, on a wooden table, while enjoying the lovely winter breeze. Perfection.

Here's the poem:

Peace is obtainable,
but only through Love.

Love is easy,
But it requires Acceptance & Joy.

My submission for this week's Illustration Friday theme of "surrender" ... a generalized native, alone on the plain, facing defeat and necessary surrender.

I used everyone's new favorite digital sketch app, SketchBookExpress (thanks to the free download on Apple's Mac Store) for the initial version, then adjusted and refined the colors in Photoshop using Smart Adjustment layers.

You can view the largest version on Flickr here.

On Friday night, I couldn't sleep so I worked up this sneaky sneaky vector for IllustrationFriday's theme of ... you guessed it, "sneaky". He is entirely made of simple objects I drew with the Shape tool, minus the wily mustache; I used Illustrator's new and great variable Width tool to create that.

A simple vector flame ... I first saw this in my head pretty much folded and flicking just like it is here, then put it down on paper with blue pencil and pen. I grabbed a snap of it with my iPhone 4, pushed the photo to Dropbox and then redrew the basic shape in Adobe Illustrator. I think I've finally got the hang of the wonky Gradient tool, so the coloring went pretty quickly.

I did recorded a video of the process, but that video also includes my attempt at making a Mac OS X icon with it, which didn't work out to my standards. You might still enjoy it, so here's the video. I recorded the video with ScreenFlow during DFP lab tonight and since my students and I were listening to movie scores and soundtracks in lab (mostly Hans Zimmer), you'll understand the music choice.

Sometimes we get carried away with our costumes and sometimes ... they carry us away. Sadly, it's an epidemic that claims more kiddy trick-or-treaters each year than stale circus peanut poisonings. Do your part to save the children; add an escape hatch level to every costume BEFORE they leave the house.

Cue "The More You Know" music, please Jerry ...

Jodie, Brittany and I were talking the other day about how I hardly use straws any more and I realized it is because 5 or so years ago someone told me that if I use straws too much, my face would get all wrinkly when I get old. You know, something like this.

Thankfully, the girls set me straight and I'm back to using straws again. Which means I'm also back to visiting Burger Kings and Wendys to replenish my straw stash. ;)

A quick sketch entry that I did for last friday's Illustration Friday theme of "artificial". For me the word equaled something robot-y, so here you go.

I have always loved the winged mech style of everything Gundam (though I have still to watch much of the apparently 30+ years of the show), so that is why I was trying for something a bit angular with this. It's a bit of a departure from my usual monster goodness, but I think it might be time for a [at least temporary] change.

My simple entry into this week's IllustrationFriday theme of "satellite" ... just my thumbs and Adobe's fantastic (and vector-based) Ideas iPhone app. Oh yeah ... my new iPhone 4 and its gorgeous screen were there too. ;)

The standard Brushes iPhone app does have a lot on Adobe's first entry into the space (i.e. progressive playback, shortcut corners, undo AND redo buttons, multiple layers, etc.), but the fact that I can output a vector file (email-able PDF) is just a clear winner.

If I ever find myself with an extra couple of hundreds (hasn't happened yet), I really think an iPad, Adobe Ideas and a Pogo Sketch pen would replace a good chunk of the rough sketches I do for logo and character work.

Staying out with "the boys" the last couple of nights has made my alarms (I had to set three ... my watch, my iPhone and the nightstand one) sound so loud and seem so early lately. At some point, I need to find some sleep ... but for now, I am definitely enjoying playing catch up with work and spending so much time out with people I really enjoy.

This is a simple vector piece made in ye ole Illustrator during the lab session today. All of the repeating elements were made using Transform effects, just cuz it's cool to not have to repeat yourself.

My entry for this week's Illustration Friday theme of "linked" ... a simple sketch in Illustrator. I had planned to color this, but I haven't been using the Blob Brush as much I as I usually do as of late and it took longer than I wanted to get to this point. I might color it later on, but more than likely, it will stay in this pretty pre-pro state.

I thought these guys looked kinda fun linked together and originally was going to give them a shared pair of creature feet and a kinda bulbous belly, but that looked too gross. With the simplified face on each of them and the little antennae, they felt better suited for robots, anyway.