Logically Illogical

Hm, perhaps there’s a bit of misunderstanding here.  When someone said TABLET, I assume it’s this kind of tablet:

The kind where you draw on a pad and look at a monitor to see where the cursor is moving.  Bamboo, Graphire, Intuos.  I’ve tried using this type of tablet before, but for linework it’s extremely difficult.  I find myself hitting UNDO more than I do draw and it’s extremely frustrating for me.  Like I mentioned yesterday, friends of mine like Finni and Bing seem to have gotten used to it, as they do excellent linework with these tablets, but I just can’t, so I normally stick to traditional media.

Last year I purchased a Tablet PC.  It’s an ASUS eee Slate, model is EP121.  It’s like a tablet, except it has a monitor and you can see where you’re drawing because you’re drawing straight on the screen.

This was what I used to do all the digital drawing I did, including that video you mentioned.  It was great at first considering I did not have the money for a Cintiq, and this was a much cheaper alternative.  I was looking for a storyboarding job then, so this was perfect to beef up my portfolio - it was small, portable, runs Photoshop, has a keyboard, and has a touch feature that can be turned off (unlike an iPad).  It is a bit laggy with only 4GB of RAM, but at the time I didn’t mind the lag because I was doing boards at my own pace.

Recently I got a job as a board revisionist, which requires me to work full-time, but often times I would end up spending 10-12 hours at work because I’m slow.  On top of that I’m doing some freelance work (also storyboarding), and my Asus wasn’t cutting it anymore.  The lag and the crashes were hindering my productivity and so I saved up some money, sold my kidney, and got a 21UX Cintiq.

It’s basically a 21” monitor that lets you draw on it.  Better precision than the ASUS, better pressure sensitivity, bigger drawing area.  Everything is just better, and the lag problem is resolved because I can hook this up to my beast PC at home that I built to withstand heavy work.

Do I recommend selling your kidney for a Cintiq?  Only if you’re using it to work that actually earns you money to make back what you spend on it.  If you’re just a hobbyist like I was when I was still teaching physics, there’s really no point wasting that much money.