How to Make a Vector Portrait in Adobe Illustrator (tutorial)

Below is a mini tutorial on how I did my gradient mesh based "Vector Portrait" in Adobe Illustrator. The thumbnails are screen shots of my workstation. Click on the thumbnails to get the full image of what I'm talking about in a new window. My main monitor is set to a resolution of 1920x1200 so I have a lot of working space. However, as a result these screen shots are HUGE and I wouldn't recommend this to those without broadband connections.

http://bit.ly/hOOARt