# First tablet - Any pointers?



## Runefox (May 5, 2010)

So I've been drawing exclusively with a mouse for a good while now, and just today I finally got a Wacom Intuos4 Small tablet as a gift. I've never used a tablet before, and while I've set it up correctly and practiced with it within Windows to do various things, I'm finding it a little weird to get the hang of (which I guess is a given).

Artistically, clearly if I'm going to continue to do things the way I did before, I'm probably going to have to switch between pen and mouse rather often (for vector stuff, due to the high sensitivity and difficulty in grabbing transform handles and so on with the pen), and I guess I want to learn to rely less on the mouse and more on the tablet. I've been using Inkscape (lines) and Illustrator (colour) up to now, but I think maybe it's time to jump back to raster for a while.

With that said, is there any specific setup that's more suited for use with Photoshop, or Paint Tool SAI, or any other tablet-enabled application? Are there any exercises/tutorials or any general pointers I could take advantage of to better make use of this? Having never used one before, I'm sort of in the dark altogether except for feeling my way through it. Either way I'll get the feel for it eventually I'm sure, but I thought I'd ask anyway since I'm actually really excited to get to using it.


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## Taralack (May 5, 2010)

Just make sure you've got the updated drivers, without the right drivers it won't have pressure sensitivity.


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## Runefox (May 5, 2010)

Nah, the drivers it came with work out of the box. Surprising, I know.


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## Joeyyy (May 5, 2010)

I am in the same boat. 
its a tough but necessary switch.


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## Taralack (May 5, 2010)

Just keep practicing. You'll get the hang of it eventually.


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## Arcum (May 8, 2010)

What I had done when I first got my tablet (after the initial OMG TABLET DRAW RANDOM STUFF) I decided to draw things out on paper then bring it into photoshop and tried to retrace it. It took me a while to realize the whole presser sensitivity thing for a long time till i eventually got around to updating my drivers. So in a way I started small then tried to stylize from there. I'm still within that stylize stage so I cant help you all that much from there.


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## Smelge (May 8, 2010)

Best thing to acclimatise, is to draw shapes every time you start to draw. Squares, circles, triangles. Progress onto 3d shapes.

Maybe play a few games of minesweeper using the tablet.

Anything to improve hand/eye co-ordination.


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## Arshes Nei (May 8, 2010)

If you read the manual, there is a few practice exercises in there you can do.

You may also want to do size dynamics on your brushes. Where as you press harder, the larger the lines become too.

If you're on Windows, use something simple like Open Canvas for practice.


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## Digitalblood (May 10, 2010)

I was in the same boat as you fora while when i first got my tablet. It's just how it is going from mouse to tablet drawing, it just feels weird and is tricky getting used to. My only advice is to just sketch around until you start getting the hang of it. I also recommend paying attention to the angle you place your tablet at, I find that if it have it placed at an awkward angle, the stylus pen won't draw where I want it to on the canvas. I hope that helps and good luck! You'll soon get the hang of it and find that the investment was well worth it.


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## amaya-murahashi (May 14, 2010)

Since you said the pen was to sensitive , just go into your ' Control Panel' On your PC. Go to ' Wacom tablet properties' and there you can play with the sensitivity of your pen making it be whatever you find the most comfortable.  Also if you ever have problems with the driver... like the sensitivity shorts out just reboot the program. If not that, sometimes the driver program itself has shut down and so you just need to reboot the whole computer and should go back to normal.  If neither of those work, reload the driver and it'll fix it. And one last problem alot of people run into, but don't know how to resolve or even know its happening - Sometimes the driver will not load properly because you have your ' firewall' up. So when installing it insure its off or your firewall will block the tablet driver, as it thinkings its a ' spyware' .  Anyway other then that :3 its all practice. I personally wont use my tablet for line arts and still do that traditionally as that's easier to me, only using it for coloring ~ .


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## Runefox (May 14, 2010)

@Arshes Nei: The manual didn't really have much, but the online manual I think did have something to that effect. I'll re-read it and see what it suggests.

@Digitalblood: Mm, I know what you mean. The problem with the orientation of the tablet is that it has a 1:1 relationship with the screen. In order to rotate the tablet, you'd need to rotate the actual physical screen, too, which isn't going to happen. I try to keep it as straight as I can while I use it.

@amaya-murahashi: Ahh, I didn't mean the pressure sensitivity; That's pretty good overall. What I meant was the sensitivity of the cursor on-screen in relation to my motions with the tablet. There's a "precision" mode which lets you focus on a section of the screen in about 1/2 or 3/4 speed, but that's a little awkward since it's a departure from the normal flow and can only be used by locking the tablet to a specific part of the screen (and while holding a button). I also don't currently run a firewall (I trust my router to block incoming and I'm not afraid of outgoing), and the tablet itself is running rather well. I'm more or less trying to figure out at this point what to do with it and how, since my background is mainly mouseart and while this opens up more avenues for me to explore, it's also not quite the same, so I need to sort of "catch up" with my mouse skill.

But yeah, I've been practicing and drawing shapes and fiddling with it, and I like it quite a lot. I just still can't use it properly just yet.


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## Arshes Nei (May 16, 2010)

Runefox, did you map the tablet to the screen? Usually in the Wacom properties there's the "Force Proportions".


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## Runefox (May 16, 2010)

Yes, I did; This was important to take care of up front since I've got two monitors, and making sure it only tracked on the primary was one of the first things I did. I haven't used the "Force Proportion" box, since while fiddling with it, it didn't seem to have an effect (I'd assumed that the proportions (16:10) were already the same). I'll give it a try anyway, though.


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