![]() ![]() As the years passed, my tablets got smaller, lighter, more comfortable and pressure sensitive. Learning to use a tablet took time since you had to become accustomed to drawing in one place and looking at another. It was heavy like you would not believe with a bunch of thick cables connecting it to my computer. It was a huge, non-pressure sensitive monster. I remember back in 1990 when I got my first Wacom tablet. I would like to take this opportunity to review the two tools independently and also as a working pair. I was lucky enough not only to try it back then, but again this past month. These two tools just immediately felt like the next generation. Without even trying it I knew that this was huge. At the Alias booth, they were running a copy of their then brand new software Alias Sketchbook Pro on Wacoms also new 18 Cintiq LCD tablet. © Alias.Īt the 2003 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Jose, California I came across what I believed to be the next big thing for computer artists. I found it more useful for applying finishing touches – starting by hand, scanning, and finish digitally – than creating something from scratch.The Wacom Cintiq 18sx tablet and a screenshot from Sketchbook. TIRED Still a little dehumanizing to move to a 100-percent-digital workflow. New brushes and tools, new, easier-to-use interface. WIRED Natural, latency-free drawing experience. If you're an old pro and you're considering updating, the enhancements are worth the $30 upgrade cost. If you have never used the software and are interested in checking it out, I would highly recommend downloading the 15-day, full-feature trial. And many professional artists have jumped on board, including vacuum designer Sir James Dyson, German-born architect Helmut Jahn, Nike designer Tinker Hatfield and creature designer Bobby Chiu. (I still consider my scanner indispensable.) But like it or not, this is the future of digital art. Some people just can't give up paper, and I understand that. But it still has the horsepower and flexibility to enable artists who are facing tight deadlines and need to get polished, high-resolution work out quickly. If you're just starting out in the digital art world, it's extremely accessible. Also, the new interface has been tuned to appeal users of all skill levels. ![]() ![]() Though it still can't match the accuracy and feel of paper and pen, SketchBook does present the most natural digital drawing experience I've used. The company has a clear goal for SketchBook pro: to open up digital drawing to anyone. You can see it in action in my demo video:Īutodesk makes a wide range of software – from SketchBook, to the 3-D animation tools used by Hollywood, to the massive AutoCAD suites used to design bridges and skyscrapers. It does a fantastic job of blending lines and colors in a natural way. One of the most useful additions is the smudge brush. And of course, the parameters of every brush and tool can be finely tuned, and you can build your own custom brushes. There are more than 100 preset brushes included in the update, and some great additions like the new French curve tool. The layout is more efficient, making it easier to find the tools you want or swap between tools. There's a new brush palette, a new color editor, a layer editor, and a new toolbar. The revamped interface is more intuitive. When drawing and sketching, lines appear faster, with absolutely no discernable latency. The interface has been streamlined, and the underlying code has been re-engineered from the ground up. Having used SketchBook Pro 2011, as well as the iOS version of the app, version 6 of software was familiar and easy for me to jump into. ![]() The newer input devices with support for multitouch navigation will especially appreciate the new SketchBook, however, since the software has been tuned to recognize multitouch gestures. I used my trusty Wacom Intuos4 during my tests (not the newer Intuos5 or Cintiq 24HD), although any of the Wacom series would work. While it's possible to use the software with a mouse or a trackpad, SketchBook pro really shines when you pair it with a pen-based input device. The new SketchBook Pro has been given a massive overhaul, with a new interface and dozens of new tools.I'm the illustrator and artist-in-residence here at Wired, so when the time came to test the new version of SketchBook Pro, the task fell on me. It's a professional-grade drawing and painting application specifically designed for artists, and it's optimized for use with those big, pressure-sensitive, pen-based drawing tablets, like the Cintiq or Intuos tablets made by Wacom. Pepper) chances are, they're using SketchBook Pro. If you know any illustrators, visual designers or comic book artists working in the digital domain (they're easy to find, just follow the empty cans of Diet Dr. ![]()
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