Introduction and a question

[tozz]

Hello Conceptart!

A kind of useless post but I like the idea of introducing oneself when new on a forum/community.
Been lurking here for quite some time and been enjoying the awesome work of the artists here, it's a true pleasure to be able to view so much art in the same place
Anyways, I'm a student from Sweden where I'm studying Media Technology (my focus will be PHP,MySQL and probably XML). I love art, especially fantasy&sci-fi illustrations. I'm quite fond of photography too.
Well, short and not to boring I hope

Now for the Q:

I've been drawing from time to time on paper with a basic pencil but feel quite restricted by the medium. I just don't have the money to buy all the coloring material, paper etc (and there's no store locally that have it). So I was thinking about a Graphire Classic XL, just to able to do coloring and such. I've read alot of negative responses to people starting digitally and they've been directed to the analogue world to learn the basics. Anyone who has actually started with a tablet and gotten good?

[SeraphSword]

Welcome to the forum.

As for your question, I don't see why you couldn't get good using a tablet, but there are some reasons not to. For instance, you can use techniques on a tablet that might not transfer to analog media. For instance, working digitally might make you a little sloppy, given that you can erase lines perfectly or work in layers, whereas with a pen or pencil you have to learn to be effiecient with your strokes. But, in basic technique it shouldn't matter, as good art is the result of the artist, not the media (after all, some folks around here create stunning works of art, with nothing but a bic ballpoint pen and some copier paper.

One thing though, if you're serious about getting into art digitally, you might want to just spring for an Intuos instead of a Graphire. You get much better performance, and I believe you get Painter Classic for free (and a steep discount if you buy actual Painter).

Anyway, good luck and welcome.

[tozz]

Those are all very valid points indeed, especially the sloppyness, guess you'll have to have that in mind if you transfer between different mediums. I've been thinking about the Intous too, mainly because I'm a geek and love tech stuff, but there's a workstation upgrade coming this winter and as a student I just don't have alot of cash lying around

Anyway, thanks for the reply