For the past two months I've been drooling over the digital marvel that is the 12 inch Cintiq, the newest offering from Wacom. I decided not to purchase one, because for the past 6 years I've gotten by just fine on a little 4x6 Graphire. *begin tangent*

Oh wacom, you sexy beast you:


The Graphire's really small, and that area I'm working on represents the entire area of my computer screen. I have to be zoomed in rediculously close to have my movements and lines be smooth and clean. The size on my Graphire has been something I want to correct for a while now.

The Graphire doesn't have shortcut keys, which means I've got one hand on the keyboard for any "shift" adds "alt" take-aways "ctrl-alt-z" step backs, and "[" or "]" brush size increase/reductions I need to make on the fly. Usually my tablet rests above or below the plane where the keyboard is, depending on if I've got my tablet resting on the moniter ledge or my lap. It's uncomfortable to hold that position for hours, but I get by. The Cintiq, like the newer models if Intuos, allows you to scroll and program several shortcut keys ON the tablet, so I could have both hands on the same plane. That would be nice.

The graphire model I have has 256 levels of pressure sensitivity. This means that if I press harder, the pen will register 256 unique levels of pressure. When I first got into digital art, I had an intuos that at the time had 512 levels of sensitivity. When it broke prematurely, I got the graphire and noticed no difference in how it was reading my pressure and pen tilt at all. Intuos wuz ttly a rip-off!!1! At the time, I was clearly an expert in digital artwork and would have totally been able to appreciate the difference in control:

i maed this 4 sakura mirror in 2001 an he has sparklies cuz he needed teh sparklies cuz thats gud art wiff highlites and ppl just dun't understand how importantz highlites r 2 a pictrue!!1!!!! i no those arn't kanji but I mades them liek kanji cuz that wuz c00l.


With the 256 to 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity I would hope that at this point in my art I may be able to appreciate the difference, though obviously I still have a long way to go in my digital work.

Finally, there's the fact that with the Cintiq, I would be drawing directly on the screen. Nay, in my lap. There's a reason I avoid drawing and inking digitally, and it's the fact that I like seeing what I'm doing while I'm doing it, not watching the moniter with my hands mindlessly moving below me. I could set up a dual moniter setup and run around with my laptop, having the menus all on the laptop screen, and a gorgeous corner to corner zoom in on whatever I'm working on RIGHT IN MY LAP. I think this is the most appealing feature for me.

*end tangent*



Now... about the sign? Despite all these advantages of the cintiq, I couldn't justify getting one because for all that it's better then the graphire... I'm getting by JUST FINE on my graphire. Why replace it with something 10x more expensive when I've got something that still works? That's just wasteful.

Well, today my cord snapped and it's got wires poking out. It will still draw, but has very strange glitches. I'm unsure of whether the cored frayed from constant use or from my wire-loving kitty cats getting into my workstation. The point is, I need a new tablet. I should be bummed about this, but I'm strangely happy that I can now justify what I felt to be a whimsical purchase.

------------------------------

Edit: It is done. My bank account is not happy, but I am =3