Many professionals are excited about “inking directly on their gadget”. Years ago, designers and artists use older Wacom serial tablets to draw directly on the display. Unfortunately, this device can be rather awkward and many people are rather unimpressed with it. It is not easy to get motivated in our work if we are note supported by useful apps. Although we need to learn these tools, we should make sure that we could get devices that are appropriate for our tasks.
Before we purchase a drawing tablet, we should make sure that using it may require some adjustment. Many of us could habitually do most our pencilling on a paper, so drawing things on a touchscreen display could be rather uninspiring and difficult. However, if our tools are good, we should be motivated by them, because we could get really good at this skill. In fact, possibilities can be endless and we could find an endless productivity capability.
Our first impression with a drawing tablet shouldn’t be too different to those professionals who often draw with pencil and paper. We could be initially struck by the large disconnect between our screen and pen. In this case, we should consider whether our hand-eye coordination should be enhanced to achieve better results. We should find that the position of our tablet can be very important. When we are looking at the display, it is important to envision objects that we want to draw. When we would try to draw the line, it could be way off. The angle could be slightly different that we intend originally. This inaccuracy could have a huge impact on our drawing, because we need to make frequent adjustments. However, we need to practice frequently. Each time we draw using these tablets, our hands and brain could become more used. We should look for a drawing app that includes a pointer trail. This should create a drag line when we draw with the stylus.
Although this feature could be rather annoying for some, we should consider enabling the “click” sound when we put the stylus on the display. Just like when we use paper and pen, we should keep our wrist straight and this little trick could also be applied when we are working with drawing tablets.
Many digital artists prefer to use think cotton gloves when they draw with a tablet. This should prevent our hands from frequently sticking to the touchscreen surface due to the presence of sweat and oils. These cotton gloves should be quite affordable and we could find that wearing cotton glove would emulate the actual feel of drawing on paper.
When we use a full-fledged drawing tool, such as Adobe Photoshop on a drawing tablet with Windows operating system, it is a good idea to choose tools that can help use create straight lines. With SHIFT + Left Click and drag, we should be able to create perfect horizontal or vertical lines. This simple trick should be very helpful when we draw inorganic objects, such as building. We could also turn the Brush Dynamics settings off, so we could obtain solid lines without tapering.
