Astute Graphics Stylism for a speedy Illustrator workflow

[iamtheblues]

I'm just getting to grips with Astute Graphics Stylism for Adobe Illustrator.
Despite what a lot of people say, Illustrator is a great vector program, with the caveat that it is, at times, very clunky to use.
This is where Stylism and the other plugins that I have been banging on about recently come in very handy.
Stylism offers a very user-friendly interface for using Illustrator's native features;
Drop Shadow, Feather, Inner Glow, Outer Glow,Transform, Free Distort, Offset Path and Gaussian Blur live effects.
No more messing around with non-intuitive dialogue boxes, where you cannot see the results in real time.
I appreciate that Xara has had most if not all of this forever, but for anyone who has been put off using Illustrator for this reason, you could do worse than download a fee 30 day trial of Illustrator and all the Astute Graphics plugins.
I have attached a screenshot of part of my Illustrator workspace in use, showing Stylism's Transform to help me make a simple circular leaf design.
Over the course of the past year I have been buying the suite of Astute Graphics plugins. I can honestly say that as a result, I have come to appreciate what Illustrator has to offer.
I still enjoy using Xara, and in partnership with Illustrator and the Astute Graphics plugins, I'm thoroughly enjoying the resulting increase in my productivity.
Bob.

[Albacore]

Bob is the Stylism plugin for making a pattern where you can easily define it with a transform like menu?

[pauland]

Pretty impressive.

[iamtheblues]

The best way to see what Stylism can do, have a look at these two links,;
A video showing what you can use Stylism for,
A static tutorial on making what I attached in my first post.
Don't forget you can turn your vector artwork into Pattern Brushes in Illustrator, as shown in this MirrorMe video. (from 13 minutes onwards).
There are plenty of Astute Graphics videos on YouTube and also on the Astute Graphics website where there are more tutorials and webinars.
Bob.