Im pretty comfortable with illustrator and its pen tool now, what now?? Are there tuts for things like gradients? Meshes? other good tools? Should I buy a book?

thx

Yeah start looking for a good reference book. I like the Master Class Abdobe Series - the one for Illustrator was pretty cool, but ther eare tons out there, Freakyclean knows more books than I do so I will wait for his post.

The Adobe Masterclass series is good for advanced users and has some really interesting techniques but to get to that more advanced state something like the Real World series or even a Quick Start guide would be best.

All these books are published by Peachpit Press even though the Masterclass book is under the Adobe Press brand.