• How can I make use of a drawing tablet?
    3 replies, posted
So I was just wondering if there's a better way than this to make detailed stuff with my Wacom Bamboo Connect (CTL470) tablet. I used GIMP, and this is what I got: -snip-
You don't need to worry about using your tablet, you should just learn to draw a bit first. And no, furry stuff or anything stylised is not a good place to start; work toward realism first. I advise you to put away the tablet, pick up a pencil and draw some staple thing like a sphere with light hitting it. Get some sort of feel for forms, gradation of tone, do studies of things to develop your eye for shapes and proportions, move away from outlines and so on and so on and so on Then when you have some grasp of that and want to get into painting, move over to the tablet (hint: you'll be back at square one with a whole new set of things to learn from scratch, but at least you'll have some fundamentals under your belt)
Also think more in terms of 3D form and shading instead of outlines Your tools are only as good as you are
A tablet is not drawing on the computer, a tablet is an extension of drawing and takes all the same skills it takes to draw on paper, emphasizing the hand eye coordination that you only gain through lots of practice with contour drawing and studies. Drawing with a tablet is hard and too many people get them much too early. I understand why, its still not a great choice unless you are willing to put a lot of time into practicing specifically DRAWING with it, rather than rendering with it. These are all reasons as to why drawing furries and such are not necessarily good things to start with. Since they are not real, you don't really know where each line should actually go and you kind of draw and then decide whether it looks right. You might get better at making lines with the tablet, but you still won't know how to properly put the lines together. And this is when working with lines, most advanced drawing does not use lines it uses contrasting areas of light, etc. Tablets can be fun, and I really hope you keep working on it because tablets can also be a great tool and drawing is a great hobby. If you enjoy drawing keep working at it and you'll become even more excited when you realize your work is starting to look better. A great example is when someone learns to draw with perspective, it might be harder and take practice, but immediately they will realize the vast improvement it offers to their work.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.