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 ...

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 ...

Here is my entry for this week's Illustration Friday theme of "dip" ... it goes out to my wife, Jodie, who is convinced the time is right for swimming, sun-ing and in general heading to the beach. I say it's still spring.

This is all vector, mixing some Brush strokes, the Blob Brush, the new (but still lame) in-line Gradient tool and a tad bit of Illustrator's Raster Effects thrown in for fun.

My entry for this week's Illustration Friday theme of "expired". I think this started out as me yet again trying to work up a propaganda-style poster (hence the color palette), but almost immediately realizing I don't have the right mindset for it. Instead, I spent some time getting more acquainted with Illustrator CS4's much-improved-but-still-goofy inline Gradient editor.

I guess the only thoughts behind the IF tie-in are for you to think of expired milk. If you ...

My first Illustration Friday entry of the year and my first ever ambigram! That's right ... flip it over and it reads the same :) If you've never looked into them before, there are some really amazing ambrigram logos and designers out there.

Since it was my first ambigram, it took a while to get right. I drew it on paper 3 times, then re-did it in Illustrator about 10 times. It still isn't perfect, but ...

Thanks to an equally relaxing and productive morning, I managed to wrangled up my earlier drawing into this fun vector. It's sized just perfect for your iPhone, but I am thinking it would make for a great poster print. What do you think? Anyone got recommendations on a place to print them at? I've only ever used Cafepress, which is slightly pricey.

Although it doesn't directly relate to the drawing, this is what I read today ...

After a yummy Thanksgiving lunch and hanging with the co-workers, I spent some time updating a few graphics for the DFP course's Project 3 example.

Despite the fact that these pieces will end up in Flash as part of an AIR deployment, I still created the vectors in Illustrator and did a copy-import. Not because I am lazy, but because I still prefer working with AI's interface and color selectors over the Flash IDE.

And, of course, ...

The lovely geometric type icon I made during the DFP Lecture today. Simple and customizable, but after continually seeing all of the pretty things that James White keeps putting out, I really just wanted to make something colorful. The icon is entirely vector, which was really difficult to achieve with the color blending of the radial shape and the necessary drop shadow ... had to delve into that cumbersome Illustrator Transparency panel masking interface, which ...

My simple and fun entry for tonight's Illustration Friday theme of "skinny" ... mainly just me playing around with simple shapes and vectors. Enjoy!

Tonight's DFP icon experiment resulted in a pretty 2 for 1 tag special. It is not much of an easter egg, but I thought my name choice on the Christmas tag was a fun one. :) As always, these should be available for purchase soon on GraphicRiver and as always, I'll update this with the link when they are.

Thanks to the built-in screen capturing feature of Snow Leopard's new Quicktime X, I actually managed to ...

Pretty much anytime Mel and I start talking about anything Yeti, I have to draw it. It's like I have this Himalayan fever and the only cure is letting it out with pencil, pen or Wacom stylus.

For this piece I did my typical pencil drawing, covered over with felt-tip marker and then digitized with the normal "Brush" tool in Illustrator ... but once I got to that point, I wasn't entirely happy with it. So ...

Here is my vector entry for this friday’s Illustration Friday theme of “subtract”.We were talking a bit about division and algebra in the DFP class the other night, so I had math on the brain … apparently.I even sized it to a perfect 320 by 480 pixels for your iPhone usage. Enjoy.

Vector Study (uploaded by DRA Studio)This is an Adobe Illustrator vector study I did, using some of the excellent look that the Blue Moon beer logo has. Classic typography and subtle colors. Simply beautiful … even if I don’t drink. To create the faded embossed line in tan area, I had to learn to create a mask layer in Illustrator, something which could really be a lot easier … seeing as how often I like to ...

Calima Monster (uploaded by DRA Studio)He’s scary. He’s red. He’s got horns. He’s the pimp vectored version of my recent marker-attoo. Why not make today National Draw On Yourself Day? It’s not like it is already any other holiday … right? ;)Why “calima”? Those belly stripes remind me of the stripes on the stones in IJ’s Temple of Doom. “Calima! Calima! Calima!” Yeah. Scared me too.