Pizza is my favorite food, so of course I had to start there. This dude is super cool; can't sit with him. 

I started with a light sketch to get the basic form set up, then went in and doodled away at his features. Illustrated version coming next.

As I vectorized the pizza guy, I realized he was too complex of a shape. I finished the illustration, but it felt overdone. 

So I went a more simplistic route, and tried to think of a way to wrap it up into a cool illustration that perhaps would look cool on a poster or tshirt. Given the sunglasses and crazy cool shoes, I landed on 'Cool as a Cucumber' and took elements from the pizza to bring the cucumber to life. 

For the type, I changed the phrase to Cool As A Cuke, to balance well in the background and also add a bit of 'slang' to it, to further drive home the 'cool' factor. ;) 

Had a lot of fun exploring my drawings and Illustrator — thanks for putting together the class, Blake!