If you have a graphics tablet (probably Wacom) tell me about it! - GFXartist.com

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If you have a graphics tablet (probably Wacom) tell me about it!
BomWathetto \| 01/18/2004 @140 \| edit post

I'm interested in how it has changed your art experience. I find the task of scanning and cleaning my art time consuming, boring, and just plain painful in general. It takes me hours and hours just to get my art into the basic lineart form just so I can color it. I figure if I could simply draw straight into the computer then things would be much easier and faster.

Tell me:
Has it made things significantly faster?
What are its advantages over using a pencil or pen?
What are a pen or pencil's advantages over it?
Is it as precise as you would want it to be?
(if the graphics work area is rather small) Is it difficult/irritating to draw on such a small area?

Thank You!

Re: If you have a graphics tablet (probably Wacom)
SeraFin \| 01/18/2004 @150 \| edit post

Has it made things significantly faster? yes, definitely!

What are its advantages over using a pencil or pen? no scanning, and if you have a good graphics program, much easier to work with. no scanned paper texture, lines can be on a transparent layer and thus removed later on if desired..

What are a pen or pencil's advantages over it? again, if you have a good graphics program, not so much advantage.. save, i still like to look directly at my pencil and see what its doing. and you can feel the paper texture under your pencil instead of just seeing chosen texture on screen.

Is it as precise as you would want it to be? mine is, yes.. i have an intuos 12x12 with 1024 layers of sensitivity and 60 degrees of tilt

(if the graphics work area is rather small) Is it difficult/irritating to draw on such a small area? i had a hard time with my small wacom.. so i upgraded.. now no troubles with small areas as my tablet is as big as the paper i'd normally work on anyway. i just want a bigger monitor so i can see the whole huge piece i'm working on at once instead of smaller portions (i work with large resolutions so there is more detail capacity via the pixel count)

i love my tablet. it helped me incredibly. you can do it all with a mouse and clever keyboard commands, but it was harder for me than the pressure and angle sensitivity of the tablet and stylus.. plus i can get two more stylus's and have them all programed to be different tools (pens/pencils/brushes/etc) so i wont need to switch so often in the program..

if you can afford it, i highly recommend a nice big tablet

Re: If you have a graphics tablet (probably Wacom)
arenhaus \| 01/18/2004 @393 \| edit post

Actually, for me the tablet proved to be a remarkably bad sketching tool. I do all my sketching on paper. Tablet is for spot work, for painting, for sketching with a wide brush, for whatever... it does not substitute a good old pencil that well.

The stylus handles pretty much like a technical pen.

As for scanning and cleaning taking a lot of time, I cannot fathom why. It's easy. I have a discussion of it available here.

[Message edited on 01/18 @395]

Re: If you have a graphics tablet (probably Wacom)
brandish \| 01/18/2004 @454 \| edit post

well, like arenhaus, l do sketches and planning pencil on paper, also most line drawings.
it`s much faster, more precise, one has much more control.

so the tablet i use for "painting" the pencil for drawing.

if you can't do a clean drawing fast with a pencil, you won't be able to do it with a tablet.

The Method i'd reccomend is:

-make thumbnail images of wat you`d like to draw.
-draw sketches in blue pencil
-cleanup/lines in black/graphite over the blue lines.
- scan the image in full colour
-photoshop

pen the channels palette, highlite the blue channel
-> image->mode->grayscale
now proceed as arenhaus discussed it

i recorded an action, makes it even faster

and you could do it with red or green, if you don`t like blue.

[Message edited on 01/18 @466]

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