It's Andy Fish!

WACOM, the best maker of digital art drawing tablets and devices in the world just released a new stand-alone tablet. Veronica and I got the email and both said the same thing– “didn’t they release this like five years ago?”.

Apparently not.

Drawing tablets are very much the norm in the world of illustration– this past 10 days I’ve been in my studio in the attic of my house working on my Wacom Cintiq for about 14 hours a day– with breaks for exercise and stretching in between. It’s been hot and humid– I hadn’t put the AC in because carrying one of those window units up the three flights of stairs is a pain in the neck, as is taking out the custom size screen and setting everythig up, only to take it back down two and a half months later when we go from Summer to Winter here in the Northeast. I solved the problem by purchasing a portable AC Unit that will sit in my studio all year round, I’ll certainly report on how successful that is in another post, but I digress.

On the 11th day of working the heat and humidity broke and I spent the morning laying out pages and fine tuning coloring on my laptop outside on my deck. Working outside is certainly much more pleasant on a day like that, but DRAWING outside? Not really an option. I bought a second WACOM CINTIQ that I can setup with my laptop and it should work great only the clunky cables and power cords it requires becomes a hassle unto itself, so I’ve avoided it. It’s also not easy to do a quick breakdown should those pesky afternoon rainstorms we are prone to come rolling in.

So THIS Wacom tablet COULD be a game changer. I looked into it– again, WACOM is THE maker of drawing tablets. Yes, I’d bought a 12″ iPad and an apple pencil for the purpose of using that as a drawing tablet but I’ve never been happy with the results it produces– looking closer at this unit it seems like it might just be a lesser version of the iPad.

#1 because it works just all by itself with no needed computer connected to it they chose to run it on Android 14– which I have no idea what that is.

#2 it’s screen is relatively small, measuring in at roughly 8×11″ — the size of a standard sketchbook but smaller than your average comic book page which is 11×17″.

#3 it uses a drawing program called CLIP STUDIO PAINT, and you get a complimentary 2 year subscription– which means after two years I will have to pay for another subscription– and I already pay for an Adobe PHOTOSHOP subscription– PHOTOSHOP seems not compatible with this new tablet.

#4 the marketing says “Draw when you want, as much as you want, wherever you want. You don’t need experience or skills. You don’t need a reason or a goal. The “Wacom MovinkPad 11” removes all barriers to your creativity. Just exist in the moment and let the lines flow as you start sketching your world. The “Wacom MovinkPad 11″ is there whenever – and wherever – inspiration strikes.”

I know its just market speak, but I’m bothered by the “you don’t need skills” part of it. I want a product that I do need skills for.

Overall, I think this will be a pass for me. I’ll wait and see if they release a WACOM MOVINK PRO ™ within a year or so which might be larger and cater more towards what I’d need. Meanwhile I should break out the iPad and Apple Pencil and give that another go round.

Speaking of technology– I’ve had a few people ask me about AI and my thoughts on it– next post.