Tablets

[BaNDiT]

Hey, i was wondering what kind of drawing tablets you recommended. thanks!

 

[The Dark Elf]

Intuos3 if you can afford it and your serious about using it, or a Graphire if you just want to dabble and have fun now and again.

Basically wacom is the way to go with tablets, they have the most support in software aswell.

 

[BaNDiT]

thanks, you can close this thread if u want.

 

[The Dark Elf]

thanks, you can close this thread if u want.

Naa I'll leave it open, might be useful for others, and if your gonna pay a few hundred for a new tablet its best to hear from a few people first before considering something. intuos3 is just my personal preference and the one I recommend.

 

[Sparta]

If you're a beginner and you have no experience with a tablet, get a Graphire model. I dont know what number they're up to now though, when i got mine in 2002 it was Graphire2.

Anyway its only small. The actual drawing area is something like 4x3 or something. But it hasn't stopped me from doing some pretty cool stuff with it.

 

[Phisionary]

I got an Intuos, old-skool. It's pretty nice, and considering it's 2 models back, works quite well. It's serial port which is lame 'cause it updates a bit slow. I honestly don't get near the use out of it that I should, but it's nery cool to have just to do a crappy sketch. I suck at mouse-drawing of course.

 

[BaNDiT]

this is what im lookin at... can someone tell me what they think of it; thanks.

http://wacomdirect.wacom.com/wacomdirect/product.asp?dept_id=100&sku=PTZ430

Edit: i also noticed that the thing is 4x5 inches of room. how does that work? i mean what if im drawin somethin bigger?

 

[The Dark Elf]

this is what im lookin at... can someone tell me what they think of it; thanks.

http://wacomdirect.wacom.com/wacomdirect/product.asp?dept_id=100&sku=PTZ430

Edit: i also noticed that the thing is 4x5 inches of room. how does that work? i mean what if im drawin somethin bigger?

I would definately get something bigger.. at the very least get an A5 (6x8) sized tablet. The smallest kind is really only any good for quick doodles and signatures and you might find it very limiting for anything more than that (personal opinion though, i've never actually used one of the smallest ones)

I had a cheap Packard Bell A5 tablet for a year or so before I went with an Intuos3 and it worked really well.

The way they work is it simply maps the size on the pad to fit your screen, so if you put the pen in the top left of the pad, the cursor goes to the top left on the screen. Every point on the pad represents a point on the screen.. It can be a bit weird to get used to at first but eventually becomes natural. But thats why A5 is probably the smallest you want to go, its a good all round size, not too small and not too big (The A4 is actually too big for me sometimes)

You shouldn't need to worry about the accuracy when buying from wacom as I think all the tablets they do are very accurate

http://wacomdirect.wacom.com/wacomdirect/product.asp?dept_id=32&sku=CTE630SA <-- I'd probably suggest that one for a starter tablet. By the time you've got used to it, Intuos4 should be around the corner.

As for pressure levels, 512 or above is fine. Strangely I prefered 512 on my cheap one to the 1024 on the intuos tablets, but thats probably more down to simply being used to it.