First REAL illustrator work, worked with the proggy for years but.. Options

[shid]

I've worked with illustrator for years- but always as just a quick reference- a "lets make type in illustrator quickly" program. I never built a project from the ground up in illustrator.

But, recently I was putzing around for a film project of mine and got inspired- and churned out this:



and after another day, I went through all my thousands of fonts and did text work on the thing



Obviously the color is off due to it being prepped for CYMK printing- but any other tips hints or suggestions?

Don't worry about the images taking too long to load- the big one's only 45k ahh I love simple images.

Also, how do you export an image only within the confines of the artboard? I have to crop it in photoshop and the original is a 27x40poster..

(most of the names on this are filler

--Sean

[shid]

I can't print 27*40 inch prints out of illustrator- and what if I want to save it to the web as a gif image? (like above) do I HAVE to bring it into photoshop to crop it down again?

The print option is lovely, and I was excited it cropped to the artboard- but I can't find that option anywhere else.