I really like it, for drawing. I'm not going to use it as a mouse replacement any time soon.

The pressure sensitivity is good and works well in Photoshop. It's not really analogous to using a pen or pencil, even though it's as immediate as those, it obviously doesn't have the tactile feedback of working on paper. I've changed my mind, it's not great for shading (at least for my style, which is quite linear with crosshatching etc.), but for creating the simple comic art type stuff, it's really nice. :)

 

I've heard you can put paper on the tablet for a more tactile feel, but I reckon it would wear out the tip pretty fast.

I'll try that and see what it's like. The tablet's surface feels too slippery for my style of drawing. I'm sure it's possible though, I've just not used it enough to get the technique.

I've got better results using a large (A2 or A3) canvas at a high res with really small brushes.

Hmm. I tried courting in a scan with my mouse yesterday. Results weren't great, was wondering if a tablet would be better. I see some of the wacom tablets have a tilt sensor too, so you can vary brush /pencil angle...

Then I saw the Cintiq (?) tablet and screen things - wow! Want!

What's 'courting in a scan' ? If you mean retouching yeah, even a cheap wacom is way better than a mouse.

TBH I don't think tablets hold any real advantage over real media for creating original pencil/pen/brush artwork, even factoring in all the layering, erasing, undo etc. shit. Principle drawback is that you aren't looking at your drawing implement, lack of tactile feedback etc. Plus maybe it's too easy to get caught up in the layering, erasing, undo etc. shit and wind up with really overworked, but conceptually undisciplined results. Maybe the best of both worlds is to use real media, scan it, then digitally manipulate it in various ways.

Aye, the Cintiq range looks ace.

Again, I think it'd be hard to get used to something like a tilt sensitivity without the tactile feedback. If they could shoehorn a series of shifting weights in the pen for some mega-haptic shenanigans, I'd be all for it.

Uhhh, colouring. I really should check to see what SwiftKey has changed my world to before I hit post.

I'm trying to learn a bit more about drawing at the moment, and I'm quite happy with my progress with pencil and paper, but It'd be nice to have a quick and clean (and cheaper than Copic pens) way to add colour and depth. I like working on real paper, but I do keep trying to control-z when I do something stupid though >.<

I watched some YouTube videos of an ex-disney guy (animator and director, forget his name) creating a sketch and then painting entirely with a wacom and corel paint essentials. Stunning results, if very Disney-esque.

Which tablet did you get in the end? The medium size intuous 5 seems to go on ebay for reasonable amounts. Might write to santa...

I got one of these. It's the smaller version, but works well for me.

At time of buying they were going for between £35 and £45. I didn't want to spend any more if the tech hadn't improved all that much since I first tried a Wacom way back when. Turns out it has, and I'm pleasantly surprised.

Ah yeah saw those as well. Want to get the biggest I can, as I found the small bamboo thing I had years ago to be far too small to be any real use.

Are you using it as a mouse replacement too, or just for art faggery?

I don't think it's accurate enough for a mouse replacement. Nope, it's probably too accurate. When moving the cursor's a bit erratic, due to it being too sensitive (and there may well be a setting to reduce this) and it's picking up every bit of wobble from my hand. I'm pretty steady handed and it amplifies every shake.

I'm working across two monitors and like Smiffy alluded to before, they're different resolutions and the absolute positioning given the tablet's ratio makes scrolling between them a little odd.

Bugger. I'm shakey enough as it is  T_T

Switch to decaff?
 

Haven't really seen the cursor shakiness you describe at all. I've got my tablet mapped to span both displays (a 1080p led, and a 20" crt @ 1400x1050), and it acts like a super fast and very precise mouse. I seem to not use it very often at all these days though. My stylus has a busted switch (or more accurately a lost switch after I dropped it on the kitchen tile floor and it skittered off to parts unknown) for doing fancy keyboard combo stuffs. It still works fine as a *mouse replacement* though but I find it easier to mouse with my right hand and type with my left, so less disruptive that way.

It's not the coffee, it's the pent up rage and aggression.

Found these options after having a play around tonight, the monitor mapping one's the most interesting.

 

So if you map the tablet to the screen, does a tap/contact with the stylus move the pointer to that spot, then a mouse click would be a button on the stylus?

or is the stylus tip a button?

Aye, that's right.

There's a rocker style switch on the pen which can do a whole host of things (2nd pic attached here)

That's the thing I lost.  :-((

Those pens aren't cheap either, if you can even find them.

Think you kind of hover with teh stylus to move the mouse, contact is equivalent to left click. So contact + movement = left click plus movement (ie drag, paint, eraser etc.)