Baumblog EST 1968 - A blog for the Baumbachs who originated in Syracuse, NY

Abby likes to do a lot of artwork on the computer, and really thinks a tablet would be far superior to a mouse to dom this. I'm tending to agree with her, but know very little about them. Has anyone used one of Wacom's, or another manufacturers? I'm curious to see what your experience has been, and perhaps what to look for in a new one.

Marc said 7 minutes later

Geoff may have some experience with them, but from what I gathered with those tablets is you can't go cheap. My roommate got the cheapest Wacom and it was kind of clunky. When I played with it, I found it very hard to control when I wanted it to start drawing. Unfortunately, those things are pretty expensive last I knew, so even the cheapest Wacom was a good $60. The other problem I found with his was the drawing area of the pad was relatively small, which made for drawing on higher resolutions relatively difficult, so I imagine a bigger drawing area would be preferred.
GJ said about 2 hours later

Thanks, Marc. We had been looking at the base line (Bamboo Fun), but of course Abby wants the next level up (Intuos3)--and those are just over $300. :)

I guess I'm also looking for is some kind of assurance that these are worlds better than drawing with a mouse. Abby gets frustrated (understandably) using the mouse to draw, but I don't want to spend the bucks on something that won't address her frustrations and end up getting used only a handful of times.
Geoff said about 3 hours later

I haven't used a tablet extensively...but from the people who I know that do own them, love them. I would agree with Marc though and not go too cheap.

$300 for tablet seems fairly reasonable for an artist...just look at what oil paint and canvas costs! You could easily spend that just to get started painting...and then paint runs out. I have yet to run out of blue in Photoshop.
Geoff said about 3 hours later

Also, what software is she using? If you want to really get your money's worth, get yourself Corel. It is a painters dream.

And if you say Microsoft paint...I'll smack ya!

Check this out:
http://apps.corel.com/promotions/wacom_px/index.html
GJ said about 4 hours later

She uses Gimp today.
Abby said about 7 hours later

Yeah, I use GIMP.

I've also noticed that yeah, a lot of people on deviantART (http://deviantart.com) use Corel... and tablets. Not surprisingly. Well, the digital artists anyway.