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Yesterday, I attended the second of series of design workshops I'm taking this summer in preparation for Grad School this fall. This one focused on one of the more important, yet confusing tools in the Adobe Illustrator Toolbox: The Pen Tool.
I discovered last night that the Pen Tool is one of the most versatile tools available in this drawing program. It has amazing potential and can be the most important tool available to a designer working the Creative Suite, not only being a tool in Illustrator, but Photoshop as well.
The workshop began with an introduction to the Pen Tool Pallet and the functions of all the diverse elements within and was followed by a demonstration of each by workshop presenter Meredith Burke, who works for the Academic Resource Center (ARC) at UB. After demonstrating some the things that each of the tools in the Pallet could do (many of which were unknown to me), Meredith has all of us in attendance work through a series of exercises that allowed us to work with corner anchors, smooth anchors and closed paths. Appearing simple enough, the exercises proved to be "more than meets the eye." Each one stressed the need for precision and proper use of each of the aspects of the Pen Tool for the various tasks we were to complete.
After completing the exercises, Meredith went on to demonstrate free-hand drawing using the Align Pallet, the Pathfinder Pallet and the Reflect Tool, as well as the "Expand" and "Path" commands, all of which I found enourmously helpful in regards to improving my comic lettering.
Finally, Meredith opened the floor to specific questions regarding the Pen Tool. I again found this very enlightening as I was able to discover aspects of Illustrator that will ultimately make me a better creator.
As with the One-day InDesign Workshop, I found this to be hughly beneficial and a resource that was well worth both the time and money invested.
Up Next: InDesign: Type Styles Workshop!
Very few films outside of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre really ever catch my attention for more than a passing glance at a movie poster or seeing a trailer online. This is even more so for films in the comedy genre. Now, I won't claim to have any sort of refined, sophisticated sense of humor, as Dude, Where's My Car? is my go-to stoner movie, but the comedy stylings of people like Will Farrell and Conan O'Brien baffle me more than provide any sort of entertainment. In fact, I find neither of them the slightest bit funny and, in the case of Farrell, can barely tolorate him in supporting roles, let alone as the star. But, I digress...
As I said, few comedies ever make it onto my radar and there are even less I would consider "must see/must have" films, so when one comes along that does, I can't help by rave about it. The Hangover is one such film.
I came across this movie almost by accident. I had seen trailers for it and planned on adding it to my Netflix queue when it hit DVD, but didn't give it much thought beyond that. On the night the film opened, one of my best friends from high school called me out-of-the-blue to see if I was interested in seeing it. Since I hadn't seen much of him (or my other best friend who joined us) in the last few months, I jumped at the opportunity, more so for the company than the actual movie we were going to see.
Fifteen minutes into the film, I realized that I had fallen ass-backward into comedy gold! Between the slice-of-life nature (even if it was a little exaggerated), the nostalgic feel of crazy college days gone bye and the near-perfect delivery of Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover met and far-exceeded every expectation I had for it. Not since 2007's Super Bad, had a comedy so captured my attention and made me laugh so hard as this film.
As soon as the credits rolled, which featured one of the funniest parts of the entire film, I knew I had to see it again. I went back to the theater that following Sunday and laughed even harder the second time around, catching lines I had missed the first time and anticipating those I had remembered. With more quotable material than I can even recall, I've spent the last week leaving them on my Facebook page and leaving them as voice mail messages for my cousin.
This film has already won a spot in my Top 5 Comedies of all time, joining such hilarious gems as Super Troopers, Super Bad, Napoleon Dynamite and Clerks. In addition, this film taught me such valuable live lessons as:
• we all do some crazy shit when we're fucked up,
• that tigers love pepper and hate cinnamon, and that
• thanks to Bin Laden, we can no longer masturbate on an airplane.
Bottom line, if you have not yet seen this movie, do yourself a favor and log off the internet and go see it RIGHT NOW! If you have seen it, then you know from where I come. And if you saw it and didn't find the same comedic genius, well you're entitled to your opinion and... you're dumb.
Just kidding.
Maybe.
WOLFPACK!!!
