If you’re serious about creating digital art then you’ll need a graphics tablet. And if your hobby becomes an obsession, it’s going to have to be a good one. That’s where Wacom comes in. The Intuos range has long been the standard for artists wanting more control over their digital art.

A mouse is far too clumsy when you want to trace a sketch or colour up a piece of art, whereas a tablet echoes the act of drawing with a pen or pencil, something we’ve all done long before picking up a mouse.

The great thing about the Intuos range is the amount of control you have over the thickness and pressure of brush strokes. Painter (or Painter Essentials, supplied with the tablet) was made to work with a graphics tablet. Once you start painting and realising that digital media can act exactly like traditional media, it’s hard to remember what it was like to create art ... Read more »

A graphics tablet is an essential piece of kit for any digital artist, but getting your hands on one large enough to feel like you’ve really got enough room to draw can set you back a large wedge of cash. The Nisis Easypen G6 has an area of 9x12-inches. The equivalent tablet from Wacom would set you back around £335.

The tablet isn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing, however, and sitting next to a Wacom you begin to realise why this tablet costs so much less. The quality of engineering on Wacom’s Intuos range is far better than on the Nisis, and the G6’s accessories, namely the pen and mouse, feel cheap and easily breakable. Having to stick a battery in the pen is a bit odd, too.

That said, the Easypen does provide a cheap way to get a large tablet. It’s easy to set up and easy to configure (even if the Control Panel lacks polish). It has a decent amount of ... Read more »

There’s been a flux of Wacom rivals recently – all aimed at the enthusiast rather than professional scribblers, and all carrying enticing price tags. The MousePen from the rather humbly named Genius is a prime example of one of these tablets – for under £50, you get a mouse, pen and an A5 8x6-inch active work area.

Unlike many budget tablets – the pressure sensitivity is here, with the MousePen having a Wacom-equalling 1,024-levels. For anyone unsure of what this means – basically it’s how sensitive the tablet is to pen pressure. The harder you press, the darker, thicker the paint. The lighter you press, the lighter, thinner the stroke. And there’s loads of levels in-between. On paper it’s undeniably impressive.

But, like many Wacom competitors, the MousePen suffers from poor build quality. It’s nothing like the quality of the Graphire range, even. The pac ... Read more »

BACKGROUND

Recently I was fortunate to be asked to review the new Cintiq tablet screen from Wacom. I am a digital sculptor at Gentle Giant Studios in Burbank. At Gentle Giant we work on everything from modeling for visual effects and games, scanning props, actors, and sets, to creating high end collectables and toys, and design maquettes for the entertainment industry. If it is a sculpture of any form, digital or practical we make them here. I spend my day at the computer trying to bring sculptural form into a 2D realm, the computer screen.

OVERVIEW

Since the introduction of the mouse in 1973 the computer industry has been trying to further simplify the interface between humans and the machines that have become such an ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. Nowhere has this challenge become more apparent than the attempt to create a union between the a ... Read more »