Test Post

Is this thing working?

Illustration Friday: Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Created in Illustrator CS.
As always, your comments are appreciated.

Technorati Tags:
Cartoon
Illustration
Happy
Thanksgiving
Turkey

Quick Sketch

He was done in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 using only the touchpad and my middle finger.

Illustration Friday: Clear

Hello IFriday Folks. Long time no see. I've been working on some other projects: NaNoWri this month--woefully behind in word count right now, some political writing, and other things.

I am going to try to get back in to swing of things with IFriday and offer this little slice 'o life as my return to you.

This piece was done in Illustrator CS.

As always, your comments are encouraged.

It's NaNoWri Time

See you December. It's time to compose my 50K word novel in month for NaNoWri
.

A New Post

But it is on my other blog. Click here, you know you want to...

Illustration Friday: Match/Run

Wow. Has it been 3 months? I guess so. Well, so much for 50 Ifridays for the year. I really tried to get ready for last week (match) but, things didn't quite work out. So I combined this week (run) with last week by cleverly adding an extra line of text. I love noir, it works so well for most topics.

Production notes: Illustrator CS.

Your comments are always welcome.

Illustration Friday: Angel & Devil/Sorry

There just isn't enough time in a week.

Ok, this is a combination of Angel and Devil, and Sorry. Two weeks, one entry, 90 minutes to go. Sheesh.

Illustration Friday: Fat

This topic didn't really grab me.

True confession time:

I have a weight issue.

Well, I don’t have the issue, I kind of like the way light bends around me when I walk—but my wife and my doctor think that I could stand to lose the not-so-secret store of Ho-hos and Ring Dings that I carry around my waist. And they’re correct. Being of Italian descent not only means I have to put up with people asking “Do you know any mobsters?” (I reply, “Luca Brazi sleeps with the fishes,” let them figure it out), but it also means I am predisposed to a hairy back and a hairless head (proof, once again, that God does have a sense of humor). It also means that I may end up with a body the size of a small satellite (as in moon not dish, though a dish of Moonpies sure sounds good). Of course, it’s my own fault that I wear the same size pants as Yang-yang the Panda.

Ok, that's actually an excerpt from a column I wrote about trail trial lawyers suing fast food companies on behalf of 'supersized sofa spuds' (was my bias obvious), but it seemed like an appropriate opening for this weeks topic. And, for those who are keeping score (just in case my doctor is reading this) I am down to a svelte 218--18 pounds to go. Now if only I weren't 4 foot 3.

Anyway, this topic really didn't grab me so I resorted to visual puns. Have fun.

Your comments are always appreciated.

Illustration Friday: Under the Sea

Ok, I know some of you were expecting me to do something like this:

C
-------
Under
but that was too much for me.

So instead, I went with the next best choice--pick on the blonde celebrity. There is a link after the piece for folks who may not be familar with the wisdom of Jessica Simpson.




Click here to read the back story.

Hey, I'm a Winner!

Check it out...first place on the All Alike contest hosted by The Unknown. Check it out.

Illustration Friday: Robot

Really Bad Pun Number 3.

Your comments are appreciated.

The Things You See in the Mall

So I was in the bookstore at our local mall this morning. I saw this and couldn't resist snapping a picture with the ole cell phone. I asked one of the bookestias about it and she looked at it, and the stack of books behind it, laughed a little and shrugged. Submitted for you amusement/chagrin.

Illustration Friday: Spotted or And all was right with the world

As some of you know, this post was not here last week. My server had gone all Junior Soprano and did not recognizing me. Because of my cranky server, I had to use my other blog on the blogspot server to post. I am reposting this here just so there is an unbroken chain of my IFriday posts. Glad all that is cleared up.

This was done in about 15 minutes in MS Expression while I was waiting in the voice mail hell that is tech support.

As always, your comments are appreciated. If you posted a comment on Secret Rooms, thanks!

Illustration Friday: Speed

Speed is a teenaged girl with a cell phone and a secret.

Thanks to all commented on last week's entry. We were on vacation last week (Florida, thanks for asking) and I didn't have a lot of time to respond to everyone. I promise to catch up this week.

As always your comments are encouraged and appreciated.

Illustration Friday: Spring

Spring is the Air....


...or Really Bad Pun #2

Your comments are appreciated.

Illustration Friday: Monster

Created completely in Illustrator CS.

Your comments are appreciated.

Illustration Friday: Feet

Because I'm a sucker for bad puns.

Created completely in Illustrator CS2.

Illustration Friday: Tattoo

This piece was created completely in Illustrator CS2. I imported a pic of Tatu and did a Live Trace, playing with the settings until I got the look I wanted. Ditto with Tattoo's picture. The text and the Tai Chi symbol were created fresh for this piece.

This is the first piece completed on my new PowerBook G4. Yep, I gave up the PC laptop and joined the cult of the Mac. So far, it has been a Very Good Thing; I am amazed at how easy things work on the Mac (no needing to reset/renew IP configs to plug into the hotel broadband, a nice suite of tools and playthings in the form of iLife, and that Garage Band thing is just too cool). I should have done this years ago.

Of course, my first PC was an Apple //e, so that should count for something.

As always, your comments are appreciated.

Tony

Dick Cheney, the girls, and Google’s Adsense

Regular readers will recall that last week’s Illustration Friday entry was about roaches rising up and fighting the man; defending their freedom to infest; holding that they, while just roaches, still had dignity. Ok, technically, it was just a cartoon spoof of Braveheart, but all art has to have a deep serious meaning or thousands of art professors will be out of work.

Anyway, in the context of that ‘toon, I mentioned how roaches and lobsters were phylum cousins and questioned if their taste would be similar. I even mentioned Lobster Fest. Of course, as most of you commented the thought of eating lobster wasn’t as appealing after the roach relation was discovered. Google’s Adsense on the other hand, did not make such an association. Nope, when I logged in this morning every one of the ads at the top of this page had changed from the usual Adobe/Corel/Illustrator ads to four ads touting the tastiness of lobster. Apparently, context is not part of the algorithm for Adsense. It is actually funny until you think about the poor schmuck who is paying for those ads….

Sure is a good thing I didn’t mention anything about lesbians hunting for Dick Cheney, huh? No telling what type of ads that would generate.

Illustration Friday: Insect

Ok, I know that roaches don't natually live in colonies, but neither do they wear blue and red face paint so work with me on this.

However, I did learn (while researching the roaches in colonies question) that a roach may nibble on your ear if you are asleep or otherwise not moving around very much.

Perhaps more distressing than roach love bites is that a cockroach and a lobster are related by phylum. According to The Cockroach FAQ: "Beyond classification which should reflect the lobster and cockroach evolutionary relationship, the term 'roaches of the sea' reflects the behavior of lobsters as omnivorous scavengers. Cockroaches will eat almost anything organic and so will lobsters. They clean up the dead and dying plants and animals in their environment."

Kinda makes you rethink Lobster Fest, doesn't it. Of course, if roaches taste as good as lobsters....



Your comments are appreciated.

This was done completely in Flash Studio 8.

Illustration Friday: Song

Talk about cutting it down to the wire...it is 11:10 on Thursday and here is my IlloFriday entry.

Well, at least I made it.

Illustration Friday: Simple

"A Shooting Guide for Vice Presidents"

Do I really need to comment on this?

Created in Macromedia Flash.

Technorati Tags:
vice president
cartoon
shooting
shoot

Illustration Friday: Glamour

Wow…is it Thursday already?

Not a lot of time to work on personal projects this week, but I wanted to get something in before it was too late (personal goal: participate in 50 IFriday challenges this year). This was done in about an hour using a mouse and Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer.

As always, your comments are encouraged and appreciated.

Embedding Flash (swf) files in Blogger

This is the code I use to embed the swf files in Blogger. I enter this through the edit HTML tab in the Create Post window. Replace the brackets, {} with the <> when you use it. I had to switch to brackets in order to show the actual code here.

{object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash
/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="420" height="420"}
{param name="movie" value="http://www.creativetony.com/swf/whackacat.swf"}
{param name=quality value=high}
{embed src="http://www.creativetony.com/swf/whackacat.swf" quality=high pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="420"}{/embed}{/object}"

I had to do a bit of tweaking on the original code I used to get it to play in both IE and Mozilla Firefox. If you are using Flash 8 there is an anti-aliasing process for the text not used in previous versions so a download of the Flash 8 player is required.

NOTE: THE MISSING END OBJECT TAG IS NOW INCLUDED. THANKS TO THOSE WHO POINTED IT OUT


Technorati Tags:
swf
Flash
Tutorial
embedding

Illustration Friday: Cat

Play Whack a Cat.

Ok, I know this is a pain, but this content requires the Macromedia Flash Player 8. If you do not have it, please click here (you're going to want to get it eventually anyway). Get Flash

I have to admit, this theme for IFriday had me stumped. Then, after visiting some of the other submissions, I got depressed--you folks are good. Anyway, I decided to have some fun with it so I developed this little game. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to my son Nick Sarrecchia the III for letting me use his voice.

Please have your volume on and give this a sec or so to load.

You have to let it load to a screen that says 'Click here to Whack the Cat' with a picture of Clancy the cat in the upper corner. From there you can click to play Whack the Cat.

This may take about 1-2 minutes to load on a 56K Modem.

As always, your feedback is appreciated.

Illustration Friday: E is for...

This was created completely in Flash 8.

Illustration Friday: Sea

It is funnier if you saw the movie Jaws.

This was created in Microsoft Expression.

Illustration Friday: Flavor

Happy New Year!

This was created in Microsoft Expression.