wacom vs. pen and paper

[oiuz]

Hello guys,

couple of months ago I've bought an intuos and I am still strugling in a way. If I have an Idea I can easily draw it on paper not being precise on
perspective and it still looks almost the way I had it in my head. However with a tablet is a bit difficult, I notice it's not like that and it is pretty difficult with line drawing unless I rotate the layer and draw the lines always with the same arm gesture or hold shift. Because its easy to draw a line from left to right diagonally but vertically or from right to left its like you'll never be able to do it perfectly, so you have to rotate the layer...

How do work ? Do you hold shift everytime, do you rotate the layer ?

What I am basically wondering about is, if I look at the professional work of some artist that have some scifi interior stuff with lots of vertical and horizontal lines, I am wondering wheter it was done with shift, or by millions of hours practise to draw a perfect line free hand without any tool etc. etc. etc...

Can anyone relate to that ? I know there is a cintiq availible, but I see almost everyone is badass with an intuos, there is no need to spend so much money...

[Star Eater]

Don't even give a cintiq a passing thought right now. Seriously.

Just keep practicing or keep doing whatever works for you. The end result is all that matters.
The only time I move the picture around is when I flip it to check for errors.

Heh, the "vs" in the thread title is definitely going to get this thread some attention.

[Kambei Shimada]

I would love a Cintiq myself.

To be honest though it's just about getting used to the tool. I used to SUCK at drawing with a Wacom but have kinda developed a technique that works for me.
(take a look at my SB)

Most people just use one layer when sketching but personally I've always like to have one really messy quick layer then a second tidier layer based over the top of the original sketch.

I still prefer drawing in Pencil/Pen but the Wacom does give you soo much more flexibility.

[JFierce]

You practice and learn. Me I just messed around with settings and hotkeys. Pressures etc. I'm just using GIMP with a painter patch that adds flow and some options. I usually just make the size and such based on pressure and velocity depending how I feel, right now that's fun to add some variation since it then changes depending on how hard you press it, and how quick you move it. Then I had two hotkeys to change brush size. Still experimenting.



And there is no VS. with wacom and pen/paper. Completely different tools. Wacom can immitate as best as it can but it's not a pen or pencil. Won't get the same marks or variation. It will do it's own thing.

[Eleyon]

It's about practice imho, take your time to get used to it! At first with my tablet I was a total mess...like a drunk llama with a pen. Seriously. Try the different settings of the tablet and understand what is best for you...play with it.

Pen/paper vs Wacom...mmmh...pen/paper, just for an affective reason but they are too different to compare!

[oiuz]

sorry for the vs. thing, I just had to name the thread...

Another thing I do is zooming out and doing the big lines in thumbnails size this way the arm movements are small and precise while the big arm movements tend to be less precise if you draw lines...

[Steamhat]

I had a tablet for 3 years before i practiced enough to start using it. granted that is mostly because i kept on being discouraged due to not knowing what i was doing. in truth it took about 3 weeks of hard fiddling.

so keep at it and get used to it. it's simple to figure it all out.

[QueenGwenevere]

It does mostly come down to practice, tablets can be awkward at first but over time you get used to them... Although when people are doing precise straight lines, a lot of the time they'll just use shift-click for convenience. I know I do. And in super-precise mechanical drawings, some people use vectors (either using the pen tool or they might even do all the line work in Illustrator or something.) If you're drawing with vectors you don't even need a tablet, you can use a mouse for that.

As for being zoomed in or out, depending on your brush and the size of the line you're drawing, you do sometimes need to zoom in to get a precise line. Figuring out the appropriate amount of zoom is mostly a matter of practice. (Dunno about other applications, but Photoshop is weird about that.)

If drawing with the tablet feels especially weird or has unpredictable results, you might need to fiddle with your Wacom settings... I had to adjust sensitivity and click threshold quite a bit too get my tablet to play well with Photoshop CS5.5, otherwise it was messing up the ends of all my strokes. (Under "details" in the "Tip Feel" prefs.)

[arenhaus]

Tablets are more difficult to control than other tools. Tablets are also *significantly* more difficult to control if you try to make a line drawing, rather than paint.

I recommend sketching in pencil on paper, scanning the sketches and using the tablet to make paintings based on these sketches. For at least a few years.

You can try sketching with a wide brush, instead of a line, of course, as if you were sketching in thinned oil with a flat bristle brush. It's easier to do with a tablet than trying to imitate a pencil. But that's a somewhat different skill from pencil sketching.