Graphics tablet size for sculpting?

Dandi8 · May 2014

Alas, after years of serving me, my Pentagram OpenXL graphics tablet has stopped working. Now I'm facing the challenge of buying a new one.

I found the Wacom Intuos Pen&Touch Small to be within my budget but its active area is quite small - 152x95mm. The OpenXL had a nice 200x150mm active area and I'm worried that the Intuos may prove too small.

Thus, I thought I'd ask you guys! I think I can make it work even with an area this small, especially since I mainly want to use it for sculpting and texturing but then again I do have a 1440p 27' display...

Does anyone here have some experience with graphics tablets this small?

Thanks in advance!

ExcessiveZero · May 2014

I personally don't appreciate anything smaller than a intuos 4/5 medium to sculpt with, the bamboo pen and touch for my laptop I keep more for sketching on the go than anything like sculpting.

and I use the medium with a 24 inch display I have two of them and a dell but I tend to keep it locked to the middle monitor, I really couldn't imagine it being practical with that large of a monitor.

sheckee · May 2014

I have the Cintiq 13HD. I love it a lot for digital painting, but I'm beginning to dislike it for sculpting. Feels too small, and I feel stupid sculpting on a screen half the size of my monitor.

SnowInChina · May 2014

it really depends on the person
some people are drawing from their wrist, so a smaller tablet suits them better
some use the whole arm, so they prefer bigger tablets

right now i have an intuos M and i regret not buying a S sized one
(i know, you can limit the drawing size, but its still big)

Dandi8 · May 2014

Interesting. So you say it would be too small... What about the medium version of the Intuos (216x135mm)? Would that be enough in your opinion? I'd have to really stretch my budget here as it's nearly twice the price of the small one, but then again I don't want to end up with an unusable piece of tech XD

Or is there a cheap alternative you would recommend?

EDIT:

Ninja'd.
@SnowInChina:
Do you have the Intuos Pro, the Intuos P&T (old bamboos) or some other Intuos? I'm wondering what size the active area is that you deem it too big. Thanks for the insight!

SnowInChina · May 2014

yeah, its the pro

223mm x 139mm is the painting area

maybe i still need to get used to it, i upgraded from a small bamboo which i used for a pretty long time

pior · May 2014

Small is not necessarily too bad - especially for texturing. I personally used a Graphire 2 for years and it worked fine. But granted, screens were smaller back then ! (21 inches 4*3 at best). One thing to consider is that a bigger tablet doesn't necessarily mean more gestural arm movements, since there is a scaling factor applied to map the cursor to the screen (obviously). As a matter of fact, huge L or XL tablets feel very sluggish to use since there is so much travel required for a relatively small cursor distance on screen.

What is your budget ? For medium sized you can go as far back as Intuos3 and you wont have much compatibility issues. Intuos2 might be pushing it but with a bit of research you might find working drivers. (these are the equivalent of todays "Intuos pro" line btw). On the used market they go for pretty cheap !

I think all these will be just fine for texturing/coloring. For gestural painting you might run into some issues tho, most importantly related to stroke orientation and wrist cramping which basically come with the tablet territory. That's where the more expensive Cintiq range comes in.

JedTheKrampus · May 2014

OP, if I were you I would get an Intuos 3 8x6 or 9x12 refurbished or used, or a Huion H610 . Huion has rather more dodgy drivers, but their mark making ability is still quite good and you can get fine results if it works (which it should.) Those will both be a fine size for sculpting and will get the job done without too much expense.

If you're the type to draw slow and deliberate strokes you might notice some jitter on the Huion, but other than that it's a fine tablet. Review here

Dandi8 · May 2014

My budget should be nothing as I just made some pretty expensive purchases... But I've still got around $150 on me. The small Intuos P&T costs around $130 which is achievable for me.

Now the medium version costs $260 which is way beyond what I can afford but if the difference is really noticeable then maybe I could try and live without a tablet for a few months while I save up...

Thing is, I'm not that good at drawing so it's pretty hard for me to justify buying an expensive graphics tablet. However, I need a decent one due to the pen pressure sensitivity which comes in handy when sculpting and painting scratches etc.

Also, after-market Intuos seem to be non-existent where I live o.O

I'm mainly concerned on whether or not a small tablet will play well with my 27' inch display and whether it's actually feasible to sculpt using it.

Oooh... Hardware is confusing! o.O

EDIT:
Ninja'd again.

I can't find the Huion anywhere on my country's market (new or used) and importing it would end up costing me more than it's worth - at least that's what my experience with importing tells me.
Sadly, the same seems to be true with the Intuos line (or I'm terrible at searching) - if anyone here ever bought an Intuos, they seem to hang on to it for dear life XD

Joao Sapiro · May 2014

i use a wacom bamboo , costed me round 80 euro, still going strong, i sculpt and texture alot on it, the drawing area might seem small , but its more than enough for me at least haha

iconoplast · May 2014

pior wrote: »

Intuos2 might be pushing it but with a bit of research you might find working drivers. (these are the equivalent of todays "Intuos pro" line btw). On the used market they go for pretty cheap !

No extra anything needed for the Intuos 2 -- I've been using mine since it was current tech and the only thing that's changed is that I have to go to the "older products" section of Wacom's website to get drivers. It's still as supported as the Intuos 3 is.

Last I looked you could easily find a used Intuos 2 medium for less than 50 USD.

JedTheKrampus · May 2014

What country are you in? Importing shouldn't be too terribly prohibitive if your country uses dollars...

Pabs · May 2014

coming from a intuos3Large to a intuos4small, i have no complains. love the small size.

Zack Maxwell · May 2014

Isn't the active area on a Small like 6 inches? That seems really small to me.

Dandi8 · May 2014

@JedTheKrampus:
There aren't many countries outside of the USA which use dollars... I live in Poland and, even though we're in the European Union, we aren't even using Euro yet. We use Polish Zloty. The cost of the package itself + customs turns into a horrendous amount of money in the end.

@Scapulator:
The Intuos4 small has a 157.5x98.4mm active area, right? What kind of work do you do on it? How does it differ from using the intuos3 large?

Pabs · May 2014

Grimwolf wrote: »

Isn't the active area on a Small like 6 inches? That seems really small to me.

7 x 4.5 inches

Dandi8 wrote: »

@Scapulator:
The Intuos4 small has a 157.5x98.4mm active area, right? What kind of work do you do on it? How does it differ from using the intuos3 large?

i use it for sculping/texturing
for the largers tablet i was mostly using my shoulder/whole arm to draw. with an smaller tablet i set the mapping to screen size so i get longer strokes drawing from my wrist/forarm with minimal movement.

Dandi8 · May 2014

Thanks for the info, guys

I think I'll go with the small in the end. Not only is it actually within my budget, some of you seem to be doing ok with a small size so maybe so can I...!

I'd love to get a used Intuos3 or something but, unfortunately, I couldn't find any viable, inexpensive options for me to acquire one of those.

Thanks again!

PolyHertz · May 2014

Just because no one else has mentioned it, if you want a larger tablet at a good price you might want to look into the MonoPrice lineup. They work well enough and are significantly cheaper then anything by Wacom.

http://frenden.com/post/31659364200/the-little-monoprice-graphics-tablet-that-could

The Huion tablets are also worth looking into:

http://frenden.com/post/60704895108/huion-h610-k58-and-w58-tablet-review-round-up

Fuiosg · May 2014

monoprice tablets, who knew. Too bad there doesn't seem to be a wireless option.

Has anyone used the wacom CTH-480? I need something more mobile, but the active area is only like 6 x 3.7", probably too small for anything.

PolyHertz · May 2014

The Huion W58 is wireless, though a bit more expensive as a result compared to the wired Monoprice/Huion tablets ($80 instead of $50-60 for a similar size).

Fuiosg · May 2014

Those huion reviews are a bit iffy, some talk about bad driver support and abrasive pen nibs.

I'll probably always come back to wacom, I still have my 4x5 intuos from like 14 years ago, still works great and has nibs. You pay more for wacom but you can't deny the quality.

marks · May 2014

Gotta say, I have one of the larger sized Intuos3 tablets (the A4 size usable area ones, at home and work luckily) and I've had to remap the workable space to be like half the size because otherwise it just feels too sluggish - you have to move your arm sooooo far to move just a little bit.

PolyHertz · May 2014

Fuiosg wrote: »

Those huion reviews are a bit iffy, some talk about bad driver support and abrasive pen nibs.

Yea I've never personally used a Huion tablet so can't say one way or another on their quality, but have been using a Monoprice for 2 years now and overall its been well worth the price. It's not quite as smooth as the surface of an Intuos3 but certainly a lot smoother then the Intuos5, and the pen nib is still going strong.

Had an Intuos 5 was using for a while at work, but ended up just bringing in my Monoprice most of the time because I liked the way it felt while texturing/sculpting more. The newer Intuos tablets have a surface that's way too rough for my tastes, feels like dragging the pen over some sort of compressed rubberized sand.

Fuiosg · May 2014

Interesting, the monoprice tablet is definitely one I'll keep in mind.

Kraftwerk · May 2014

I use a Wacom Bamboo Fun medium before that a Graphire 2 both did and do a good job but for me a A5 sized one is perfect not to small not to big. My Graphire 2 was a bit to small and i tried the A4 tablet of a friend which was to big for my taste. I use my Bamboo for everything.

Blaizer · May 2014

If you custom to draw a lot, on A4 or A3 format, the best choice would be a LARGE tablet or better, a 24" cintiq if you have enough cash

.

Medium sized tablets are enough good, though.

At the end, it's a matter taste. In my case, i can't stand using a medium tablet because when i want to do a very fast strokes, i want to do it like with the paper. All intuos have the same resposiveness, so for me is hard to need to do very small and slowmo movements. Btw, i have less precission and i hate all that crap of zooming out/in.

it's recommended to use the tablet with some inclination if you don't want to run into ergonomic issues.

I'm still waiting a decent cintiq to replace my very old intuos 3. A 4K 32" tablet would be my most desired device

.

Fuiosg · May 2014

I'm about to order the huion h610. After researching it quite a bit, some people were having (newb) issues with the drivers, but overall the response is extremely positive. People say they're exactly like the monoprice but with better materials.

Was tempted to go with the wireless w58, but in the end the 6 x 10" active area feels more valuable.

amokk_gw · Jul 2014

I'm thinking of buying a graphics tablet for texturing and sculpting and probably even 3D modeling. I think I'm deciding between an Intuos or a Cintiq, but I have some questions regarding those and hope somebody can answer them.

1.) Which one is more userfriendly? Is it really easier to work directly on the tablet or better to have a high quality monitor to see the work?
2.) Is the screen ratio/size scaling between the Intuos and a widescreen 23" monitor disturbing or is the positioning accurate enough to calculate?
3.) How about water resistance of the Cintiq? I guess it needs daily cleaning so I would assume it needs some kind of water resistance.
4.) Regarding the bigger sized Cintiq like the 22HD/22HD touch. If you work in the middle of the screen the arm will touch the surface. Does that disturb the pointer positioning? If yes, that would lead to a very unnatural arm-positioning.
5.) Another question regarding the bigger Cintiq's. I guess even with the tablet you still want to use some keyboard shortcuts, so does a big tablet work with having a keyboard beside?
6.) Does the Cintiq's work together with 2 other Monitors on a newer Geforce card? (2 in DVI and 1 in HDMI)
7.) And what about the heat of the Cintiq's? Is that still a problem, that the hands get sweating?

Thanks

Graphics tablet size for sculpting?

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