Tablature

Posted on by andertoons

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I ordered myself a nice new Intuos3 today.

My Intuos2 has served me well for a long looooong time, and I’d had great hopes for my NuLooq controller, but, sadly, twas not to be.

I’m a big guy with big hands and the NuLooq just wouldn’t stay put. Every time I twisted to zoom, or moved to pan, the damn thing slid around on my desk. So a one-hand time saver quickly became a two-handed time burglar.

I’ve got a fair amount of coloring to do for some greeting cards, and, frankly, coloring’s not my favorite thing in the world (there’s something about revisiting an older cartoon that just leaves me flat somehow) and, well, I just snapped. And after watching the movies over at DaniDraws (albeit quite sped up) I bit the budgetary bullet.

Kyle Miller commented at our last CCC meeting that he was using the Intuos3 in Illustrator to do his Working Daze and Game Creature stuff, so the seed was planted I guess.

Looks like the Intuos3 has all sorts of fun buttons and sliders to help me optimize my Photoshop time. I’m really looking forward to trying it out!

It does make me wonder, though, if I’ll ever make the jump to all digital. I haven’t really played with any custom brushes in Photoshop (anyone know any good ones?), and I’m kinda in love with my brush pens and markers, but I think someday I’m gonna have to do it. If for no other reason than my pens’ manufacturer stops making them or something.

I’m gonna be a pen and paper guy for a good while, but I think the new tablet is inching me ever closer to the all digital line in the sand.

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Published by andertoons

10 thoughts on “Tablature”

  1. The Intuos 3 is a nice tablet – I think you'll really enjoy using it. Regarding digital tools – I've found Painter to be much better than Photoshop with regards to the variety of artistic brushes and general overall responsiveness than Photoshop. In my cartoon workflow, I typically use Painter to digitally ink over my pencils, and then bring the drawing into Photoshop for colors. Photoshop files can be easily moved back and forth between the two applications, as well.

  3. Flogger – Thanks for the info! I've tried Painted a while back (Painter 8 I think?), but found the custom burshes terribly slow… Is it better now?

    Also, I probably need to go the full on Mac Pro route soon.

    (BTW, love your hippo porn cartoon!)

    Mike – Aggle flabble klubber

  4. I've been using a Wacom for several years, and I still don't know how to draw a smooth line with it. Every line looks like I'm drawing in a rail car. Coloring, however, has worked just fine. I suppose Painter would live up to its name and be great for painting, but for coloring cartoons Photoshop works well. The secret (though it's not much of a secret if I know it) is to use the DARKEN mode with your pen and/or pencil tool. It lets the color go down without erasing the line art.

  5. You are gonna love it.

    One tip: (no pun intended) make sure you try the "black" nib or "felt tip" nib as it is sometimes referred to.

    It is not as slippery as the harder tips and has some drag to it like a marker tip on paper.

    I have a feeling you might like it since you are a marker guy. Lemme know. I am curious what you end up using.

  6. Hey Mark! I'm more of a layers guy myself, but I'll have to try that…

    Dave – Honestly, I didn't even know there WERE other nibs! I just plugged the thing in and used what was already in it. I gotta try that now.

    What I could REALLY use is a sort of brush pen nib!

  8. hi Mike:

    I've used a demo of Painter X (the latest version) and I can confirm that this version (as well as IX) are both extremely responsive with the tablet. Glad you liked the 'toons 🙂 BTW, I loved the Lio toon you linked to on your blog. I had to share that one with my readers as well.

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