My first original illustration

I've been taking a class in Adobe Illustrator - mostly so that I can adjust graphics files when necessary at work. The class while not difficult has been challenging mostly because I've been using AutoCAD for 12 years and it's been confusing because I am so used to the commands in CAD and tend to want to use those commands instead. Also some things in Illustrator are not intuitive (nothing in CAD is intuitive but I've used it for 12 years and you do catch on after a while).

Adobe Illustrator is a far superior product for illustrations and CAD is for drafting and it does that well. It surprises me that the things that work so well in CAD haven't found their way into Illustrator.

So far all the illustrations I have worked on are either exercises out of the text book or projects created by the instructor. The other day, H, my manager, asked if I would make a logo for his remote control plane club. He had a concept in mind which included a jet and their club name. Course, I had to ask what kind of jet and he says a high performance jet (need to remind him that I don't have his background in jets.....) Anyhows, I created a silhouette of a blue angels ( http://www.blueangels.navy.mil/index.htm) plane (f-18), which looked pretty cool, but he comes back with F-35. What's the difference between a f-18 and a f-35 profile silhouette - not much to the untrained eye. So I drew the top view based on some illustrations found online. Took a while to get it done and give it the right shadows to create the curves and give it dimension but it did look pretty good. I'm not far along enough with my knowledge to tweak certain details but at the scale being used, what was done looked pretty good - at least he thought so.

Important lesson about doing these things, it's all about what the client wants. I thought the silhouette had a sexier look but it's all about the details on the plans for these guys - so top view of the f-35 it is.

I am going to keep this as a work in progress, I plan to keep tweaking it as I learn more.

So glad I don't illustrate for a living, with all my OCD, I'd never get a project done.

V.