I’ve given up on tablets!
My new creative input device of choice arrived a few days ago. The unboxing was frantic. After hurriedly discarding the first layer of cardboard shell, I tore into the second. The packing materials weren’t making it easy.
“Open, damn you! Too. Many. Boxes!”
Finally. There it was. Covered in cellophane, styrofoam, and other earth-threating materials. The monetary investment wasn’t the only regrettable accompaniment to this guilty pleasure. It’s petroleum produced silhouette was beautiful. “I can just devote more time to pro bono charity work to, er, offset it,” I thought.
I setup my workspace to accomodate it’s 20 plus inches of horizontal width. I plugged it into the DVI port on the back of my work PC and installed the requisite software.
“Hurry. Up.”
I started to make my first strokes. “What’s this? Lag? Horrible, terrible, noticeable lag between my stylus and the cursor?”
“Surely, this must be some sort of mistake!,” I thought. “Perhaps I need to turn off pointer precision or some other archaic inclusion in my operating system? Where is the setting to un-fuck this thing?!”
No setting was to be found. My Nintendo DS running a homebrew, pressure sensitive drawing app named Colors was more responsive, or perhaps more instinctively easy to pick up on, than the new cornerstone of my workflow. Despair! Two thousand plus dollars down the toilet! Sixteen percent restocking fees! Shame and ridicule from my peers! Clearly the end days were near.
I decided to persevere. I started to notice a trend. My instinct was to focus on the cursor and not the tip of the stylus. I’d conditioned myself to watch the screen cursor with steely dedication when drawing with my old Intuos3 9″x12″ tablet. Having taught myself to draw with it, I feared that drawing with a direct input device such as this was more of a hurdle for me than most. I had to rewire my focus. The damn cursor was throwing me off.
“Be the pen, Ray. Be the pen.”
Doing my best to ignore the cursor, I trudged forward. I’d have to forcibly separate myself from the old tablet. I had to ween myself away from it and the habits I’d cultivated. I spent all day and night drawing with the new device, doing my best to achieve a zen-like calm.
Drawing was getting easier. The lag became almost entirely unnoticeable. Soon, I was hitting lines on my first attempt that would’ve taken a half dozen with my old tablet. The weight of buyer’s remorse was lifting off my shoulders.
By the next morning, not only was I used to the way it worked, but I’d noticed my work-flow was orders of magnitude faster with it. My accuracy was much improved. Drawing was effortless. Maybe most importantly, creating with it was far more fun than with my old tablet.
The Cintiq 20WSX was at home on my desk and I couldn’t imagine working without it. Down with tablets! Up with, er, Cintiqs!
May 16th, 2008 #
Damn Ray, moving up in the world. That thing looks great!
May 16th, 2008 #
I’m deliriously happy to have it.
May 16th, 2008 #
The line between real life and the digital world is blurring. I’m jealous.
May 16th, 2008 #
I’m genuinely smitten with it!
May 16th, 2008 #
Thats awesome dude! You will for sure break the record for the number of monsters ever drawn on a Cintiq!
May 16th, 2008 #
Balls. Out.
May 16th, 2008 #
Well, this explains the lack of response to my e-mail reply. Come back, Ray. Come back to us…
May 17th, 2008 #
Wow, that’s too shiny to not use, glad it worked out though. The pen looks light too, how many pieces have you made with it so far?
May 17th, 2008 #
Hope you have the time to post a video showing yer new lil’ buddy in action.
May 17th, 2008 #
that thing is sexy … *sigh*
May 17th, 2008 #
Just for the heck of it, I did this in Painter today… still not crazy ’bout that app.
http://www.imagekind.com/Showartwork.aspx?IMID=341e2e8a-68de-4574-aef9-42a6ecd9f9fd
May 18th, 2008 #
Congratulations mate. I’d love to have one of those meself. It really must make a world of difference, especially for you.
May 18th, 2008 #
Beautiful device, but vastly over-priced. Here in Rip-off Britain, where for reasons we cannot discover prices for everything are inflated even more, this models costs £1800 pounds or $3500 dollars, even the new 12 inch model retails here at over $1500 dollars.
So I’m pleased for you Ray, but jealous as hell, enjoy.
May 20th, 2008 #
Very cool, Ray! love the story. but what will happen to this when we run out of gas? Your so smart, your thinking solar power, Right? What if the sun runs out of gas, Ray?
May 20th, 2008 #
I would need $50,000 in wind turbines to power my house. I guess I’ll resort to crushing berries and making my own papyrus when peak oil hits, har!
May 20th, 2008 #
Ever since I got mine last year, my drawing and painting time was cut in half. Well worth the investment. Have fun!
May 21st, 2008 #
Totally, Tony. Things go much quicker now. I managed to get cooking with the tablet, too, but still a marked improvement.
May 21st, 2008 #
And its true, all those times using a tablet, the amount of times you hit undo is ridiculous to just achieve that one line. People just get used to that. Once you get on a Cintiq, being able to achieve the line or brush stroke is a time saver that goes beyond anything. I can’t stress enough to anyone that does artwork digitally to get one.
Also, I have this
http://www.amazon.com/Ergotron-Desk-Mount-Arm-45-179-195/dp/B000BUK7KW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1211392821&sr=8-2
The Ergotron LX Desk Mount Arm - mounting kit ( 45-179-195 )
It works great! I can actually stand if I ever feel the need to stretch my legs while I’m painting.
Love your artwork Ray, keep it up!
May 21st, 2008 #
tony just sexified a lil bit more ….
*sigh* again …
May 21st, 2008 #
BTW, Ray. Charles Burns is coming out with a new book. Thought you might be interested.
http://www.lewub.com/udaroom/site.php?type=P&id=25
May 27th, 2008 #
I am not a full-time drawing-artist, so i doubt i will convince my wife about a new hardware purchase ;-)
damn, i love that since the cintig 18″.
Did you compare it to the previous 21″ cintiq? Are there big differences, except for the wide format and the touchscroller? BTW, what are these little buttons/touchpads?
TIA!
May 27th, 2008 #
From others’ testimonials, the widescreen aspect ratio and repositioning (in a positive way) of the touch strips and express keys are the only changes.
Those keys are programmable in the tablet preference utility. I really only touch my keyboard a few times an hour. Most anything can be programmed into the keys.
Jun 6th, 2008 #
I *almost* lost my mouthful of coffee when you were looking for that setting. You should have a disclaimer or something about hot beverages and reading the blog :)
Nice job :)
Jun 7th, 2008 #
Touchstrips:
They are much smaller/shorter than on the 21inch display!?
Are these really strips? They looks like “buttons”?
TIA
Sep 2nd, 2008 #
I too am thinking about getting a cintiq but I reckon on buying the 12 inch model to take the place of the wide intuos 3 I have already. Are you still loving the Cintiq?
Does it also work as a standard tablet if you wanted too. I would be tempted by the 20 in model but it is twice the price. Maybe next year ……