Wacom Bamboo

[Ozzie]

After looking through the threads here again, I find myself completely inspired to start drawing again. Kidnemo and Rezo's stuff in particular have me itching to start mini web comics of my own.

With that, I'm incredibly rusty (not that my art was on their level to begin with), but I'm really not happy with my results scanning a drawing and going over it with a mouse. To be frank, it looks like ass. So, I'm wondering what differences a tablet could do. I'm broke, so the awesome super expensive Wacom's are out of the question, but I came across this one for about $60 bucks.

It's the Wacom Bamboo. I've never used a tablet before, so I have no idea what I'm getting myself into here, but I basically just want to use it to draw. Nothing too crazy, just doodles for the most part. Is the Bamboo a good buy?

[YellerDog]

I haven't had any experience with the Bamboo. It always struck me that they're oriented more towards "casual" use as a replacement mouse rather than a serious drawing tool. Still, it might be worth it to get one on these cheap, just to start getting the hang of the hand-eye coordination learning curve. Just have a mind towards upgrading to a bigger Intous model, it will really opens up what you can do as far as detail and gestural line.

I started out on a Wacom Graphire 2, had an Intous 2 6x8 in college, and have used Intous 3's, Cintiqs, and currently rock a 12x12 Intous 2 at my current studio. I like Wacom stuff a lot.

That said, regardless of if you pick up the tablet or not, I'd say use this time to really learn the ins and outs of Photoshop. That vector line tool can do incredible things, especially on the inking scanned drawings front.

[Ozzie]

I haven't had any experience with the Bamboo. It always struck me that they're oriented more towards "casual" use as a replacement mouse rather than a serious drawing tool. Still, it might be worth it to get one on these cheap, just to start getting the hang of the hand-eye coordination learning curve. Just have a mind towards upgrading to a bigger Intous model, it will really opens up what you can do as far as detail and gestural line.

I started out on a Wacom Graphire 2, had an Intous 2 6x8 in college, and have used Intous 3's, Cintiqs, and currently rock a 12x12 Intous 2 at my current studio. I like Wacom stuff a lot.

That said, regardless of if you pick up the tablet or not, I'd say use this time to really learn the ins and outs of Photoshop. That vector line tool can do incredible things, especially on the inking scanned drawings front.

Thanks Yeller. I'm really trying to learn as much as I can in Photoshop. I'm basically self-teaching myself, which of course is really limiting in that I'm sure there are a million different techniques that I haven't even thought about. So for the most part I'm just start trying different things and google-ing something if I get stuck. I've been using GIMP for around year or so (I told ya I was broke) and I've grown to be pretty comfortable in it, but I was finally able to upgrade to Photoshop CS3 a couple of days ago. Needless to say, I'm never going back.

[Finch]

i can't say anything bad about the GIMP, it did me well when i needed it.