From: hiroyuki@invalid   
      
   "Rastus"  wrote in   
   news:dhqufg$1npi$1@bunyip2.cc.uq.edu.au:   
      
   > First off: it has been about 15 years since I last drew anything and   
   > have been mucking around with computers ever since, so I am figuring   
   > the best way to get myself back into drawing is to get a graphics   
   > tablet so I can draw on the computer.   
   ...   
      
   Even after some years of using one, I still find a tablet somewhat   
   unnatural, since the line you're looking at on the screen is not where your   
   hand is. Although it's a big improvement on a mouse it's still hard to   
   coordinate your finger movements with the on screen image, with strokes not   
   always going in quite the direction you intended. In anime they still draw   
   cels by hand and then scan them in to be cleaned up, this is still the only   
   way to do really good freehand drawings I think. One advantage of scanning   
   your pencil sketches in is you can adjust scaling and perspective, like I   
   realised I'd drawn someone's proportions wrong and was simply able to   
   stretch parts of the figure until it was right. Doing the same thing on   
   paper requires extensive redrawing.   
      
   The size of the tablet is probably not all that important, since I find I   
   tend to zoom in on a particular part of the image to work on and only make   
   fairly small hand movements most of the time. I'm using a tablet a bit   
   bigger than A5 (9"x6"), but with hindsight an A6 one would have been   
   adequate since the problem with freehand drawing mentioned above means I   
   tend to be working more on details, and anyhow to get a big stroke you can   
   just zoom out the image so that a small movement of the tablet gives a   
   relatively big stroke on the drawing.   
      
   Perhaps the biggest benefit of a tablet is the pressure sensitive nature of   
   the stylus (make sure you get one that has this - there may be some cheap   
   ones that don't!), which enables you to control line thickness in a natural   
   way by pressing harder or more gently. This also lets you rub things out   
   either partially or completely, and vary the density or diameter of   
   airbrush effects. A mouse is completely useless for such work due to its   
   simple on/off of drawing, painting and erasing effects.   
      
   The only time you would really need an A4 size tablet I think is if you are   
   using it to trace an existing drawing. However although my tablet has a   
   translucent tracing surface I've only used it a couple of times in seven   
   years. The main thing that wears out on these things is the plastic stylus   
   tip, make sure you have a bunch of spares. Mine came with three tips but   
   they're all blunt now which makes the pressure sensitivity much poorer than   
   it was, (or perhaps the pressure sensitive transponder has simply become   
   more insensitive).   
      
   As to make, I doubt there's any benefit from paying for a big name like   
   Wacom, I got a Calcomp that was half the price of Wacom at the time (though   
   I don't think the brand exists any more). Just make sure they have 255   
   levels of sensitivity and a fine enough spatial resolution to capture   
   subtle movements with pixel-accuracy (mine is 1000dpi but that is surely   
   overkill).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)