Oh goodness gravy, I have been remiss. Last Thursday, my newest video course, Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Advanced, hit the virtual shelves of the lynda.com Online Training Library. And it’s been the talk of the town. If you imagine this site is the town. And I’m the only one talking. But it’s been popular so perhaps you’ll want to listen up, even if I’m just yackin’ up my own junk.

The course is 11 hours and 2 minutes long. Exactly 6 minutes shorter than my previous course, Illustrator CS6 One-on-One; Intermediate. Which makes it precisely 0.6% more powerful. (I did the math!) Please allow me to share my favorite three sample files from this inspiring and ultra-long but ultra-inspiring course.

Starting with, are you familiar with the concept of color harmonies? They play an essential role in the behavior of the exceedingly useful Color Guide panel and Recolor Artwork command. If this is news to you, check out Chapter 25, “The Color Guide Panel.” Specifically the movie called “The 23 color harmony rules, diagrammed.” In which I show you how each of the color harmonies works, in a real Lab color wheel so you can’t help but understand, as pictured below:

Chapter 29, “The Appearance Panel,” might be the most ambitious chapter I’ve ever created. It documents one of Illustrator’s best features, the Appearance panel, in which I build not only the train track you see below, but also the bird’s-eye view of the old-style locomotive. That train engine is a combination of nearly 40 strokes heaped on a horizontal line that I drew with the Line Segment tool. (Only the smoke is a separate compound path. Yes, even the smoke stack, gold bell, and cow catcher are nothing but heaped-on strokes.) I might be the only person who would attempt this sorta thing. Which is to say, it’s mildly insane, but ultimately a whole lot of fun.

And then there’s Chapter 30, “Dynamic Effects,” in which I show you how to apply Illustrator’s most amazing and altogether live, editable filtering effects. Below we see the results of Transform, Offset, Pucker & Bloat, and some dynamic Pathfinders. This logo involves almost no drawing. It’s just a circle, a coupla stars, some text, and a bunch of command-based effects.

There’s so much going on, it really does peal the mind.

And that’s just the beginning. So much logo experimentation as well. Check out the full course, Illustrator CS6 One-on-One: Advanced, for the complete story.