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by ghaff 3438 days ago
Traditional Wacom tablets are IMO awful. Some people do get used to them but not having direct feedback of what you've written just doesn't work naturally.

A tablet, especially one like the iPad Pro with the Pencil is much better but still doesn't work as well as just sketching on a piece of paper for me. I assume if I applied myself to using a tablet more though, I'd get used to it. Clearly people with a lot more drawing ability than myself can do great work on tablets.
1 comments
jrapdx3 3438 days ago
Yeah, Wacom tablets were/are great and terrible at the same time. I've used them on and off for a long time, and they really are great for drawing, but there's a learning curve to be sure. Actually I liked the older Wacoms better than some new ones I've tries out. The ancient "cursor" device was mouse-like, but used in absolute mode was great for some tasks where keeping it in the same place enabled keeping the pointer on the screen in a predictable spot.

Actually the newer touch/stylus screens on tablets like the MS Surface models I've used are harder for me to use with the stylus. Manipulating the stylus is harder due to parallax and the fact that the tool and hand covers up part of the screen. Just doesn't seem as "natural" to me as the old drawing tablet.

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ghaff 3438 days ago
Preferences definitely vary. Our graphic artist at a former employer had a Wacom tablet but she drew everything on paper first and then just basically used the tablet to digitize it. I've never found anything I really loved but, then, I'm pretty bad drawing and writing on paper too :-)
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jrapdx3 3438 days ago
Yes, it's sure hard to beat the sensory and esthetic experience of putting pencil to paper. No digital method can come close to it.

OTOH drawing on the computer has a whole new set of features to offer that are completely novel and can't be accomplished in other ways, certainly not easily.

So like in most things, different "tooling" involves tradeoffs, no single solution ever covers it all. We usually have reasons to go one way or the other. In any case, not tool can make up for dearth of talent, how well I know the truth of that statement!

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