Making sense of artistic freedom between tablets.
polycounter lvl 4
Hi. Im very much new to this website. I dont know why i didn't join long ago..
I've been using a Wacom Bamboo for the past year and a half, started learning Zbrush and sculpting techniques with this tablet. It is a wonderful product and it has not failed me since i got it. It is a great device to start learning sculpting. However, i could never understand why some of my favorite artists that i see on Artstation and Youtube had a distinct control over their strokes and how they produce forms on the model. At first to me it seemed like they knew something i didnt. So i started tweaking the clay brushes in an attempt to recreate what i saw on these artworks. It lead me to very interesting findings and new ways to sculpt, much more like real clay. I still couldn't pinpoint the difference though, like i was missing something basic.
When i actually looked at the specs of my tablet compared to others after i had trotted so much of the learning curve, and i found something that caught my eye. Pressure Sensitivity. The Bamboo has 512. Other models have 2048 and also have tilt sensitivity. Also, it seems that Wacom discontinued this product. Afterwards i saw some youtube video reviews of people complimenting the wacoms for their 2048 pressure sensitivity. This is why it always seemed "harder" for me to try to emulate the quality of work i was seeing being produced by these amazing artists. Strokes with a bamboo tablet are very boxy and uniform.
So my conclusion is that, having a tablet like the Bamboo is fine for starters, but if you want to get into really demanding proffesional work, getting an Intuos or a Cintiq are the best options.
I guess this message is for anyone who is using the same tablet that i am because honestly, there is no way for us to know the difference between pressure levels on these devices if you never compare them in the first place. Not only that, we miss the feeling of a true intuitive sense of digital sculpting.
Im not saying you're a better artist if you have a more expensive device, im just saying make sure you adress the capabilities of your tools so you can be better prepared. So if you're currently working on 512 levels of pressure, keep in mind that you dont have the same range of control as someone that uses 2048. Very important stuff.
So what do you guys think? Tell me what tablets you use to sculpt and how do you feel about this? It has been really hard for me to find someone with answers.
I've been using a Wacom Bamboo for the past year and a half, started learning Zbrush and sculpting techniques with this tablet. It is a wonderful product and it has not failed me since i got it. It is a great device to start learning sculpting. However, i could never understand why some of my favorite artists that i see on Artstation and Youtube had a distinct control over their strokes and how they produce forms on the model. At first to me it seemed like they knew something i didnt. So i started tweaking the clay brushes in an attempt to recreate what i saw on these artworks. It lead me to very interesting findings and new ways to sculpt, much more like real clay. I still couldn't pinpoint the difference though, like i was missing something basic.
When i actually looked at the specs of my tablet compared to others after i had trotted so much of the learning curve, and i found something that caught my eye. Pressure Sensitivity. The Bamboo has 512. Other models have 2048 and also have tilt sensitivity. Also, it seems that Wacom discontinued this product. Afterwards i saw some youtube video reviews of people complimenting the wacoms for their 2048 pressure sensitivity. This is why it always seemed "harder" for me to try to emulate the quality of work i was seeing being produced by these amazing artists. Strokes with a bamboo tablet are very boxy and uniform.
So my conclusion is that, having a tablet like the Bamboo is fine for starters, but if you want to get into really demanding proffesional work, getting an Intuos or a Cintiq are the best options.
I guess this message is for anyone who is using the same tablet that i am because honestly, there is no way for us to know the difference between pressure levels on these devices if you never compare them in the first place. Not only that, we miss the feeling of a true intuitive sense of digital sculpting.
Im not saying you're a better artist if you have a more expensive device, im just saying make sure you adress the capabilities of your tools so you can be better prepared. So if you're currently working on 512 levels of pressure, keep in mind that you dont have the same range of control as someone that uses 2048. Very important stuff.
So what do you guys think? Tell me what tablets you use to sculpt and how do you feel about this? It has been really hard for me to find someone with answers.
Replies
http://blackink.cz/tablet-pressure-curve-tool/
The startup pressure threshold has an impact too (this too is editable with the third-party pressure tool), and lastly, if you use a light touch (say one quarter of the default pressure setting) then you will get less discrete "pressure steps" to work with (512/4 = 128 as opposed to 2048/4 = 512). That said I personally never noticed pressure steps when painting even with lower end tablets so this aspect has probably has no impact in practice.
And then on top of that various painting and sculpting programs filter all this input differently. I also believe that MacOS tends to pass tablet input in a more reliable manner than Windows as this OS seems to drop pressure sensitivity and sub-pixel tracking less often, but if I am not mistaken the latest release of Lazinezumi comes with a new fix for that.
In short ... it's a bit of a mess
I personally don't see much of a difference between tablet types for sculpting, but I do prefer the Intuos (pro) 3 for painting, and the Cintiq 21UX (black) for lineart. Only briefly tried the 22 incher so I cannot comment on that.
If you've worked with physical media, you might notice that pressure isn't nearly as important as it may seem. What most people mistake for pressure is actually a change in how the tool is used. E.g., the artist doesn't press harder, they're just using a softer graphite or have more paint on the brush. Most artists maintain a fairly consistent pressure that becomes part of their style. This is really evident with dry media like pencil or conte crayon. The same is true for digital.
Between the Intuos and Bamboo lines, the biggest difference (in my opinion) is pen tilt and general feel. Tilt doesn't really apply to ZBrush, but it makes a massive difference in Photoshop. Intuos' also feel more solid and smooth than Bamboos. I've also modified my Intuos by taping a piece of heavy weight paper for ink over the drawing surface, which is extremely comfortable to work on.
Ultimately it's really about your technique. I've had my Wacom's driver crash so that my pressure sensitivity stops completely, and then continued working for another two hours because I didn't want to break my flow by restarting my computer.
Getting an Intuos is well worth it if you work digitally on a semi regular basis. If you work professionally, a Cintiq is the way to go, but not mandatory.
A little known fix for that is to simply run the Wacom Tablet Preference File Utility and reload a saved version of your settings. It also takes care of the "Tablet not found" error.