New drawing tablet · 5:51am Sep 9th, 2017
For years I've been envious of the larger Intuos tablets -- the ones with drawing surfaces as large as a full sheet of paper, with delicate styluses able to detect a huge range of pressures. But those tablets are expensive tablets, and I've had to make do with my Wacom Bamboo. It's not bad, but it's not great either. The lack of sensitivity on the tip makes it difficult to draw tapering shapes. As much as I like drawing, I don't do it enough to justify the $300+ price tag for Intuos's nicer tablets.
But Intuos no longer has a lock on the tablet market, and if you don't mind buying Chinese, there are some other great options out there. Last week I took the plunge on one of them, a Huion WH1409:
This thing is huge. It's active area is 13.8" x 8.6". The wireless stylus has 2048 pressure levels. There's a bunch of buttons on it you can program to do whatever you want. I haven't mapped any of them yet, but I imagine I'll eventually set them to obvious commands like moving the canvas, changing brush sizes, color picker, etc.
The drivers are a little tricky, and of course this is a Chinese manufacturer, so to a certain extent you're taking a risk on quality. My own experience was a bit sketchy -- the inner box on my model was already open (the sealing tape was cut), the cords weren't bound like they should have been, and the surface had some tiny scratches on it. All together, this suggests I got a returned and refurbished model, rather than a new one.
But hey, it cost about a third of what a similar Intuos tablet would cost. Gotta make some allowances, you know?
Anyway, I gave it a spin with one of my characters from The World is Filled with Monsters, Rose Quartz. I think she came out pretty well.
I suppose I should write the next chapter of that story, come to think of it. Soon, perhaps.
It's not fair in the least that you're so good at both words and pictures. I'm pretty handy with AutoCAD, but real art escapes me. Always wanted to get better, though. If this works out for you I might pick one up in the future. Worst case, I can always give it to my uncle or cousin, who are both fantastic artists.
Wow, you're pretty good at drawing.
That looks awesome! Love the colors.
Awesome!
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Yeah, Cold in Gardez is not only an amazing author, he's also a great artist. He's drawn a bunch of his own cover art.
Absolutely incredible artwork Cold in Gardez
I need to learn to draw!
Does the stylus require batteries or has that particular wacom patent on inductive power expired now?
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It does, sadly. It has a rechargeable battery that lasts about 8 hours (which isn't very long in practice). It's one of my primary complaints about the Huion.
I have one of the Huion tablets, I forget which model. I don't mind the pen's battery life much, since mine came with a USB cable for recharging it. However, I've never been able to set the express buttons to do anything. the driver software crashes every time I try to edit them! hopefully you have better luck configuring yours.
the advantages are the large size and pressure sensitivity for such a cheap price, but everything else is a risk. oh well, it'll do the job.
Your vast amount of competence in both worlds is something I'm trying to use to help motivate myself to take the time to start drawing. As for tools, I have a Samsung Tab S3 (with their special stylus) for hardware and Artflow Studio for software, but I haven't figured out how to use these for much more than comparing potential colors for OC characters. I have no idea how this compares, though I have always been curious what it's like to draw on something that isn't the picture directly and how you get it to line up.
I have a Huion, though it's a much smaller model, as I'm still very much a beginner. I don't really have any complaints, because I wanted something cheap, simple, and reliable and that's what I got.
Well, I guess if I had one complaint, the USB stylus plug in can be slightly restrictive, though I prefer that over battery.
Try shading with complimentary colors instead of black. It will avoid that muddy look in the shadows. There are online tools to help you pick a good compliment if you need them.
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Speaking of conductive stylus'; I'm really digging using a Samsung note with a Wacom bamboo smart pen! It only has around 200 levels of pressure sensitivity compared to the 2000 of a proper tablet but having to only pay less than a quarter of what you'd have to pay for a Wacom companion is a worthy trade off!
Wow, you're really good! Look out assassinmonkey, here comes Cold in Gardez!
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Yes! I have a yoga book that uses the same technology. It's been a godsend knowing that i can have a spare stylus.
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Yeah, color theory and its application is still something I'm struggling with. I've tried doing a few pictures as pure values, then adding color after, but that tends to come out even worse.
Still looking for the secret, I guess. I'll try more aggressive color use next time.
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Color theory is insanely complex. You seem to have a solid handle on the basics.
This might be of help:
Holy fuck you're good.
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Oh, I love Wacoms, but they're expensive for the size you get compared with Huions. And, yes, I totally get that the quality on Wacoms is generally higher. But money has its own quality.