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Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 28 Nov 2009, 21:52
by ComicCrazy
Hi, I'm a budding young artist and was looking for a decent Graphics Tablet. Something not to complicated. For inking artwork and stuff. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 29 Nov 2009, 01:51
by skyromie
Wacom is the market leader, with both normal tablet and on-screen interaction.

Wacom

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 29 Nov 2009, 09:53
by Jonny Whizz
Trevor Metcalfe uses a Wacom tablet, so if it's good enough for a pro, it should be good enough for you.

I'm not into digital cartooning mind you, I much prefer traditional drawing. If anything, I actually find doing cartoons digitally is trickier, though I'm used to MS Paint, which is pretty rubbish.

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 30 Nov 2009, 13:55
by Muffy
When I last worked there (3 years ago) the illustrators at Ogilvy & Mather (the advertisers) use Wacom tablets - though usually just to colour scanned work only. They did sometimes use the mouse too though for colouring. :)

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 30 Nov 2009, 14:55
by Peter Gray
Don't like it myself.
the faces and body do look the same in each panel..
not enough variety!!

The backgrounds also can look samey..

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 30 Nov 2009, 16:35
by Lew Stringer
Peter Gray wrote:Don't like it myself.
the faces and body do look the same in each panel..
not enough variety!!

The backgrounds also can look samey..
That's only if the artist copies and pastes the same things. It's not a limitation of the tool. Using a graphics tablet is the same as any other drawing method. What you draw is what you see on screen.

I had one years ago but couldn't get used to it. I just scan in my drawings and (if required) colour them in Photoshop. I still use a mouse, even for colouring.

Graphics tablets are becoming superseded by a new method now; a large screen tablet where you actually draw directly onto the screen. Dave Gibbons has used one and he said the texture of the screen is such that it feels like drawing on paper. Sounds interesting, but they are very expensive:

http://www.drawittablet.com/cintiq

Lew

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 30 Nov 2009, 17:46
by Digifiend
So were DVD players when they first came out. Give it a few years, prices will drop to a more affordable level I'm sure. :)

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 24 Dec 2009, 18:48
by felneymike
Wacom is about the only tablet manufacturer that is any good. I got a non-Wacom one from Tesco a few years ago when my old Wacom broke and it was terrible, you had to put batteries in the pen and it "acted" like a mouse, ie the size of the tablet didn't correspond to the screen so you didn't know where the cursor was going to be. Also you had to hold down a button to draw and it was generally unresponsive, it went back the same day.

I then got a Wacom Bamboo One, which is a lot better!

Re: Graphics Tablets?

Posted: 01 Jun 2010, 19:27
by moose
The Wacom Bamboo is great, and fairly cheap. I'm currently using it for an act of utter heresy, which is to restore some of Joe Colquhoun's Johnny Red and Charley's War work.

I debated this act of vandalism/restoration (depending on how I feel at the time), but thought it'd be nice to see the pages looking as good as they could when published, rather than having large areas of shading missing where the letterpress paper was either poorly printed in the first place, or has degraded with age.

I'm not redrawing, and I'm not going over fine line work, but where large areas of block shading look poor, or where there are massive amounts of discolouration of the page, the Wacom is good for getting rid of them, and more accurate and responsive than the mouse.