Kchick recently emailed me axing about drawing tablets so I thought having a how-to forum would be a good idea.
I've been using Wacom tablets for at least ten years. I've tried other brands and was so unimpressed that I can't even remember what they were.
The way a tablet works is: You use a special "pen." Move it around just over the surface of the tablet to move the cursor, tap on the tablet to click, and apply pressure on the tablet to draw. You can assign the tablet surface to take up any area of the screen that you want. All parameters (pressure/tilt sensitivity, button clicks, etc.) are assignable in a control panel.
What drawing tablets give you that you can't get with a trackball (much less a mouse) is:
- Comfort. You draw like you would with a pen, so it's a natural way to draw. I have tendinitis and using a tablet to draw is not painful for me. A trackball causes pain after a few hours and a mouse causes pain after a few minutes.
- Precision.
- Pressure. Once you've experienced the joys of pressure in Illustrator or Photoshop, you will curse every project where a tablet is not available. Press harder and the line/brushstroke/any tool gets wider/softer/harder/redder/whateverer. Pressure alone makes a drawing tablet a must-have device for anyone creating digital art.
My current favorite tablet is my Wacom Intuos 2 6x8. This was the best tablet I could afford at the time and it's a great one. The larger the tablet drawing area, the more precision you get and the more you have to pay. The Intuos line has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, multiple assignable buttons, and a solid, comfortable pen.
I also own a Graphire 2 4x5. The smaller drawing area still gives me enough detail for most projects that I do, but most of what I do is crude and depending on your style and the projects you take on, 4x5 may not be enough. The Graphire line has 512 degrees of sensitivity, and this has always been sufficient for my needs.
For beginners, the Bamboo is a good choice. It's like an even simpler, cheaper Graphire and makes an excellent tablet to keep in a laptop bag.
I have not used any of the other tablets. If I had a few thousand to spend, I'd get a Cintiq, which lets you draw on its screen.
