Review - Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16 (Top Spec)

  Today I finally get to review Wacom's MobileStudio Pro 16. It's a device I've wanted to use since - well, really since before Wacom even made tablet computers.

Way back in 2012 or so (the dark ages of mobile art tablet computing), I provided a little feedback to Wacom during their early design phase on what became the Cintiq Companion. Our first visit consisted of me giving opinions on two pieces of wood, each carved roughly into the shape of a tablet computer. There were two because one signified a device with a 13 inch screen, and the other, a 15 inch screen. I quickly made known my lust for a 15 inch tablet that would run a full operating system. Sadly for me, the Wacom rep replied that they would probably ship the 13 inch version. It made some sense - in a world where the iPad sets consumer expectations for thin and light, a relatively hefty 15 inch slab may have been a harder sell.

But here's the all-important distinction between the joy-promising iPad (even the iPad Pro) and a device like the MobileStudio Pro: Functionality. In my business (comics), professionals are used to drawing on a traditional-media surface that's 11x17 inches and up. It's a good size for making images. Head into illustration and painting, and the surfaces tend to get even larger. Most creatives that tech companies love to woo with lines like 'simulates the feel of paper' or '8 bajillion levels of precision' - they're used to big surfaces. They're used to schlepping paints and canvases and portfolios and lighting gear and nude models and God knows what. For those traditionalists, something that's 'impossibly thin' but still doesn't make their work life easier should not be seen as sexy.

At the root of this rant is my essential question: why move from traditional media to digital? Why give up the pleasure of natural media for silicon and glass? I'd wager the answer for most professionals is not the promise of more joy, but greater efficiency: More images created in less time typically benefits our bank accounts (unless we're working hourly - then curse efficiency). Mobility is nice because it gives us the option to create efficiently from wherever we are.

Now, the iPad is great tool for many. I'm not disputing that. I've never owned one, but I've tested it and appreciate its aesthetic, ease of use, and (now that the iPad Pro and Pencil exist) its facility as a creative mobile device. The Pencil is a great drawing tool. Also, the iPad's apps have matured to the point where a lot of great functionality's possible via programs like Medibang Paint, which does much of what you'd look for in say, Clip Studio Paint (formerly Manga Studio in the US) and Photoshop. But here's what an iPad cannot do: It cannot provide a mobile computer system that's as powerful and agile as one which runs a professional operating system ala OSX or Windows. Functional file management, multitasking, and the fine-grain control which professional creatives employ on a second-to-second basis, and which makes digital workflow efficient vs. traditional media, is leaps and bounds better on a system with a full, professional operating system. The iPad is simple and elegant, but that comes at the cost of efficiencies like hardware buttons, which are a necessity to efficient workflow on a tablet device. You can use a keyboard for these functions, but if that's your only option, you can't be as mobile with your drawing tablet and that's really the point for its existence.

In other words, if you're not getting the benefits of a full computer, why not just stick to your watercolor brushes and a sketchbook? Those pack down pretty damn well and they're still more fun to use than any of the digital options (unless you hate messes, and if you do, why are you making art?).

That was a lot.

Maybe we're beyond the need for debates. Maybe everyone at this point knows whether they want an iPad or a computer like the MobileStudio Pro. If you do have clarity, and that clarity directs you towards a full computer system like the MobileStudio Pro, read on. If you just want to make the occasional sketch, or hate the idea of carrying something that's not 'impossibly thin', go buy the iPad Pro.

Getting back to my lust for that cruelly set-aside 15 inch screen... The original Cintiq Companion came out in a 13 inch Windows 8 model alongside another version which ran Android and could be used as a second screen for a PC or Mac (a feature Wacom later built into the Companion 2 and this current MobileStudio). The Companion 2, which I also used, was very similar to the first gen. It was a little lighter and a little thinner, and it had a better screen. Coming from it to the 16 inch MobileStudio Pro, the weight and size feels very similar. The MobileStudio 13, which I have not tried, is supposed to be lighter. For me, the all-important thing is having a little extra screen real estate for my creative work.

I no longer own a big desktop Cintiq because I like to take my workstation with me around the house/town/world, have it be comfortable and efficient, and then to make it disappear when I don't want a hunk of technology sitting around. The Mobilestudio Pro 16 is just about the perfect size to do what I want it to do. It emulates the larger working area I'm used to from traditional media while bending to my every will. Heading to the couch? Check. To the studio? Yes. On the plane? Sure. Running any piece of software I can on a real computer? Uh-huh. Keeping all my 500 MB+ TIF files at the ready for editing wherever I am? Yeah.

Whether the screen size/weight tradeoff between the 13 and 16 incher is a big deal to you probably depends on your intended use, but if you're a professional, I'd counsel you towards the larger screen. It's a bit more comfortable, a bit more functional, and given its 4k resolution and color reproduction, a great representative for what your work will look like in print.

Getting down to the techy jargon, let's discuss the advancements of the Wacom Pro Pen and the screen digitizer. The Wacom pen now has over 8,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. Do I note an improvement from the former 2,000-odd levels of pressure sensitivity? I do not, sir. Some people claim to be able to tell the difference between 1,000 and 2,000 levels of pressure, but the fact is that most devices have pressure curves that are calibrated distinctly from one another. This results in a different response device-to-device. A good drawing program like Clip Studio Paint allows you to fine tune this pressure curve, even from one brush to another. Because of this ability, it's more important to customize your pressure curve so that it responds well to your own mark-making than it is to just accept that a higher number of potential pressure levels results in better marks. It's only after you calibrate a device with 8,000 levels to your own preferences that it serves you as well or better than your last, more familiar device with 2,000. Does that make any sense? If you care about that stuff, hopefully it will. 

Another point is that most digital brushes will lag like mad if they're 8,000 pixels wide. That's effectively what we're talking about here, at least hypothetically: A pressure response that begins with one pixel at its lightest and ends with 8,000 pixels at its heaviest. No uber-powerful workstation computer I've tried on this earth is going to give anything but a laggy response to a brush that size, and then all that potential for fine control is moot.

One area where Wacom practically and appreciably improved is in the digitizer's accuracy. Parallax (the distance between the pen's physical tip and the on-screen cursor lying beneath the glass) is less than previous models, but more importantly, accuracy around the edges of the device is much better.

An example of how this edge accuracy can break down and become an efficiency drain is the contemporary Surface Pro. HA! You thought I could only rip on Apple.

Versions 1 and 2 of the Surface Pro were very good drawing tablets. I used the first one for almost a year (fancy video proof above). These first units used Wacom digitizers, and although edge accuracy wasn't great, the devices were very usable for both artistic mark-making and interface navigation. Since drawing programs (and most other programs) position their interfaces at the screen edges, it's important to be able to navigate these areas quickly and accurately. When Microsoft switched to the N-trig digitizer starting with version 3 of the Surface Pro, it was disastrous for its use as an illustration tool. Now, when the pen came near the screen edges, it would lag behind the stylus tip like you were dragging it through molasses. By the time it caught up, you'd likely have already depressed the pen point, expecting to hit a button near the screen edge - but no! You hit something else, because the cursor wasn't there yet. AAAAAAAAHHHHG.

Even drawing in the center of the screen became rough after versions 1 and 2 of the Surface Pro - diagonal lines would be jagged, the bluetooth pen's signal would drop out at random times... It was a mess. Maybe they improved things for the Surface Studio. I don't know. But I will say, if you're interested in this kind of tablet technology and want a serviceable device, find a used Surface Pro 1 or 2. It'll be far less money than the current Wacom model, and you can get a sense of whether you like working this way at all before you fork over the big bucks.

The MobileStudio Pro 16's other updates vs. the former Companion model include a touch ring (for controlling things like brush size as you would track lists on an old iPod), a 3D camera, and a dedicated graphics card (the Nvidia Quadro m1000).

The touch ring isn't of huge benefit to me. On my Companion 2 I controlled brush size by depressing a button and dragging my pen tip, which made for a fast and accurate resize. I can set up the MobileStudio the same, but to use the touch ring version, I have to first depress one of its four corners to ensure the brush size operation is selected, then scroll with my finger one direction or the other in a less-than-precise way. Rotating the canvas with the touch ring, at least in Clip Studio, was non-functional because my finger would inevitably slide farther than I intended, resulting in an upside-down canvas. It's far easier for me to manipulate canvas rotation via touch. Your mileage may vary. On that note: I was baffled for a few minutes as to why touch wasn't working correctly in Clip Studio on the MobileStudio Pro. It ended up being that I needed to go into the program's preferences and select Tablet PC instead of Wintab for the program's driver. That solved my problem.

The 3D camera seems like a neat novelty, but in my limited attempts to scan objects around my house, I've found it pretty difficult to use. My results usually look like a Dalí painting filtered through David Cronenberg's Videodrome, and while that's sort of awesome, it's probably not the intended result. I'll withhold judgment under the assumption that I'm doing something wrong, but I have a feeling that the camera's not up to what a professional 3D modeler would use to digitize, say, J-Law's head for a video game.

Speaking of video games, I went out on a limb and tested the Quadro m1000 graphics card on the most punishing thing I could think of: The PC version of The Witcher 3. Insert big nerdy musical flourish here. I fully expected it to not even run, but much to my surprise, it did run, and quite well at medium-high settings on 1080p. Didn't check the frame rate, but it was very playable. I also tried it at the machine's native resolution of 4K, which did slow things down to a slide-show, but daggum if this little tablet didn't keep from crashing, artifacting, or exploding even under all that stress. Could you build a computer that'd run the game better for 1/6th the money? Absolutely, but tablet PCs rarely contain the guts to even load up a demanding game. I was impressed.

An area that impressed me much less was the MobileStudio's included accessories. The previous model from Wacom came with a carrying case, already-applied screen protector, video-out cable for connecting it as a second screen for your desktop/laptop, and a stand. A terrible stand, but a functional, multi-positional stand. Now you get none of those. If you want them, you have to buy them or source them from other manufacturers.

In regards to the stand, that would be the worst omission if I hadn't discovered a magical and inexpensive solution via a lovely internet forum: Use two ultra-cheap rubber-coated-metal bookstands as an infinitely flexible and surprisingly rigid support for your several-thousand-dollar tablet. I can even bear down on the screen with some weight and the angle doesn't budge even at an extreme horizontal. It works amazingly well. Just use pliers to bend the ends of the bookstands so they cradle the tablet and you're good to go. Plus, they're way lighter than the old Wacom stand.

With that problem solved for no money, the video-out cable and protective case are the worst omissions. Really, Wacom? This thing costs $3,000 and you couldn't include the video cable? This seems like a decision based on some tough financial turn or a competitive acquiescing to Apple and Microsoft's methods, i.e., some people may not use this thing towards the purposes for which we designed it, so let the everyone else buy the Pencil and Keyboard for another hundred bucks apiece. To that I say, "NYEH."

What Wacom does include is the pen (thank goodness), a carrying case, a charger, some color rings to make your pen... forget it, I'll never know why you need a color ring... and a little plastic doohickey that lets you mount the pen to the side of the tablet while it's stationary. That doohickey also attaches to the top of the pen case. What's here, Wacom designed with care and that care really extends across the tablet hardware itself. It's a well-made machine. Aside from my ambivalence towards the touch ring and camera, I have no issues. It's sleek, it has a big beautiful screen, and a ton of programmable buttons. It's a design geared toward getting work done.

A last couple comments on the hardware: There's now a full-sized SD card slot, making transfers from your SLR easy-peasy. There's also three tiny USB-C ports instead of the big old USB ports. You know, the ones that everyone and everything still uses? It's one of those things where it's hard to imagine they couldn't have fit even one full-size USB port into this thing (it's not that thin), but then again, there's the future, and there's high-speed transfers, and there's added durability with the tablet's charging ports (an area of common failure in the older Companion models). I ordered a pack of four little USB to USB-C adapters from Amazon, and they work great. Just remember to travel with one in case you're out in the world and need to use a standard device.

Regarding performance, my model came with an i7 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. Comparing my day-to-day work against that done on the top-tier Companion 2, I don't notice much difference, but they're both very capable machines. Having 16 GB of ram is the nicest aspect of the hardware spec in terms of my work with multiple huge image files. I can keep a number of pieces open and not deal with slowdowns or calls to virtual memory.

Plenty of people will wonder about battery life, and the answer remains pretty similar to what I found with previous tablet PCs, Wacom or otherwise: About 2 to 2.5 hrs of image-creation work. Now, before all the iPad folks start raising Cain, consider this: Even the very-efficient iPad Pro, rated at 10 hrs of battery life gets only 2-3 hrs of actual battery life under comparable strain. By strain I mean working with 11x17 color image files at 600 dpi or better and a couple dozen layers. Maybe a few of those at the same time. That's a very normal work scenario, but if you're just sketching or working at lower resolutions, you can certainly squeeze more battery out of the MobileStudio. Most people buy a machine like this to use its full capacities, though, so expect a few hours at best - about the same as other similar options on the market.

So what's left? How nice is it to draw with, I suppose?

It's real nice.

I hope I provided you with a balanced impression of this machine. I like it very much, and I'm tickled that Wacom finally released the larger model that's only lived in my dreams for four years. If you want to travel, move around the house while you work, create art in coffee shops or airports and want to have a full arsenal of the best creative tools at anyone's disposal, this is a great choice. Get a bluetooth keyboard for it (I like the Logitech K850) and between storyboard jobs you can write your next book on it - which I'm doing right now. When productivity's done and you need to chill, hook up a game pad. When you want to be free from your high-tech art studio, stuff your studio into a backpack and be with your fellow humans.

This is certainly a specific (and expensive) computing device, but it's also versatile enough to be the only one you need.

The Guidebook

Today I want to share a very little bit about my next book. As we travel the west coast, dodging raindrops and making memories, I'm also gathering data and reference material for a young readers graphic novel, The Guidebook. Here's a snapshot from my proposal:

To survive in a world where mammals are nearly extinct, a little girl named Elvi and a brilliant naturalist, Flora, must follow and protect the monarch butterfly migration.

It’s 2260. Solar radiation, now lethal to mammals, has forced humans into underground bunkers while nature overtakes cities, roads, and landmarks. The only eight-year-old girl lucky enough to roam free on Earth’s surface is Elvira Jones. Flora, Elvi’s adoptive mother, is a brilliant naturalist who discovered a chemical in monarch butterflies that allows mammals to live in sunlight again. Against the wishes of important people, Flora escaped her bunker with a few supplies, a pigeon named Thoreau, and the only person she couldn’t leave behind - Elvi.

Now Elvi and Flora follow the western monarchs from north to south on America’s Pacific coast. Flora wants to make enough medicine so that every human can live above ground again. Along their adventure, Elvi and Flora rescue a mysterious baby boy, navigate considerable mother-daughter drama, and overcome a threat from five men who want control of the monarch’s secret. Elvi reflects on these and more important moments (like getting bit by a weird bug) in a journal she calls “The Guidebook.” Elvi’s journal pages pop up through the comics narrative to serve as a field guide. Sort of like Flora’s fancy naturalist textbooks, but much more fun.

On every page or two, in the corner of a landscape panel, there are coordinates and a compass heading. This allows readers to follow Flora and Elvi’s progress through real places and even travel their exact route themselves.

So we travel with Elvi and Flora. We're in our travel trailer rig and they're in an imaginary, heavily modified 1988 Toyota van (my dream rig - the one that never dies, even in a far fetched-future scenario). Our routes overlap as I map their fiction to our stops from Florence, OR to Big Sur, CA and beyond. These are the tools I use to merge our travels:

The big watch-like thing on my wrist allows me to get coordinates. It's early 2000s' tech, but it was cheap, it's durable, and it gets the job done. The little compass on the right gives me a rough heading towards whatever view I take in. Once I double-check these numbers, I tuck them into the corner of a Guidebook drawing and add in my fictional details... In the example below, I put Elvi and Flora's adventure van and an old driftwood stump I used to climb on as a kid in Pacific City, OR. Elvi hangs on it there in her red hammock.

Adventure calls us down the road again now, so I'll leave more details for later. We're currently in Arcata, CA, headed towards the Avenue of the Giants - a place where my dad marathoned back in his wildman running days. After that, it's further down the coast toward the monarchs' overwintering turf.

Can't wait!

Latest Hardware Love Letter - Canon Pixma Pro 100 Printer

My love affair with tech is frequently at odds with my impulse to keep rooted in the materials of my childhood (and, history up to now). There are uses for both. There's efficiency to be gained in digital, and there's joyful play that goes with using real-world materials. I still prefer and approach to my work that balances the two, and gives me the best aspects of each: the speed and power digital layouts/pencils, and the natural textures and fun of traditional inks (and sometimes paints). In order to bridge the gap between my Cintiq Companion and my bristol board, I needed another tool; a quality large format printer. I did a good bit of research, and I've found one that not only fits the bill for comics bluelines, but a whole host of other applications (art prints, photos, last-minute valentines)- and in my use, it does it all while beating the competition senseless from a quality/value standpoint. Here it is:

This is the Canon Pixma Pro 100. It's Canon's entry-level professional color printer, it's beastly big/heavy, and built like a tank compared to the consumer printers I've used. I'll get into what it does well in a minute, but first I'll tell you something about my prior experiences using large-format printers. Then you shall fully understand my joy.

I've used a number of large format printers from HP, Brother, and the like (and by large format, I don't mean gigantic, roll-out-a-banner size, just something with at least 11"x17" capabilities). They've all been consumer-grade, and serviceable with some coaxing. One that comics people recommended frequently for its multi-functionality is the Brother MFC J6710dw. For about $150, you get an 11"x17" scanner, printer, fax (right?), creature-feature. We have one in my studio, and I've used it a number of times to print my digital bluelines onto bristol.

Here's the thing: in the mid-to-late nineties, my parents got one of these MFC things from another manufacturer, and it just did nothing well. It had constant problems, and at that time, I swore I'd never buy an MFC device. After using the newer Brother in my studio, my opinion is largely unchanged. It does produce decent blueline prints, but with enormous caveats: after only a few friendly encounters, I found it had trouble taking a single page of bristol (you have to hand-guide the paper onto the sensor, do a holy cross, close your eyes, and count to ten- and even then, it may spit the board out, or give you lip about how there's nothing there). Even when it does finally print something, it may print the image slightly crooked on the page- not a big deal for print art production, but it sure doesn't make originals look their best. In short, I found all the efficiency gained in digital layouts and pencils squandered by constant printer battles. I sometimes spent an hour, hour and a half trying to get ten pages printed. I'm not kidding. I could have had another hand-penciled page mostly done in that time. RE-DONK-U-LOUS! My experiences with our older HP deskjet were largely the same- lots of time wasted trying to get a good print.

So where do you go from there? Large-format-capable pro grade printers, even entry-level ones, typically start at about $500. Ouch. Would I eventually make that up if I didn't have to waste time battling the device? Sure, but I am my father's son, and can't help but find a deal. This is freelance art, after all. Some days I get offers from joe average that let me pay two weeks of bills in a day, and other days I get offers from major publications to do art for less than I pay my babysitter. Finding a good deal on your tools is important.

Enter the Pro 100. One of the delightful things about this printer is that it's almost always available with a huge rebate from Canon. If you go to Adorama, for example, you can typically find it for under 90 bucks after the $300 mail-in-rebate, including a nice stack of 13"x19" photo-paper. It's crazy.

Here's what's even crazier. We all know that manufacturers price their printers to make their real money from ink and toner sales. This model is no exception, with a full set of 8 cartridges running about $100. Double-ouch, especially considering how much ink you use on just 5-10 13"x19" high-quality prints (the answer is most of it). Granted, blue-line prints are nowhere near that thirsty, so you'll get far more pages out of the ink set before you need a refill. BUT. The secret to getting huge value out of this printer is using refillable inks from a third party manufacturer. Note, I'm always very leery of non-name-brand inks, and you should be too. They'll often yield less, clog more, and give you worse color. I did a lot of research on this, and found a supplier called Precision Colors that a bunch of pro photographers love (I think I found a few discussions on DPReview, among others). Their system is certainly more work intensive than just buying a new set of cartridges, but having done it myself now, it's really very easy if you follow their instructions and have a few tools around the house. I also love that I don't have to throw away so much plastic.

The set I bought from them is the squeezy-cap system (should be on the bottom-right of this page). Do your own investigating to see if this is worth it to you, but for me, it's beautiful. The inks are formulated to match the quality and consistency of Canon's, and with the bottles I bought, I should be able to fill my cartridges about 3 dozen times for the same price of 1 new set from Canon. Precision Colors also has adjusted color-profiles you can download if you're crazy about getting everything perfectly consistent. For my uses, their inks work perfectly well with the default Canon settings.

The Pro 100's print quality and ease of operation are also big plusses. Coming from the Brother, I expected some amount of fiddling would be necessary for my bristol sheets, but much to my surprise, I've not had a single battle in a month of regular use. I can load up a fat stack of bristol sheets, hit print on a batch of pages in Manga Studio, and the printer just does its thing, no lip given, no jams, no misaligned images (knock on wood). The bristol feeds through automatically. I also used the printer for some art prints at a recent convention, using the provided 13"x19" photo paper, and the results were stellar. As good or better than anything I've received from a print shop, even on the standard quality mode. Its borderless  printing feature is also useful for art prints, or just getting the biggest working area possible onto my bristol board. The printer's wifi capable too, so I can sit at my desk/couch with the Cintiq Companion and print stuff off any time, without having to hook anything up. A pretty standard perk for a modern printer, but still very nice.

So far, I've printed about 30 pages of Batman '66 pencils, a couple watercolor underdrawings (I've gone right over the ink lines without much bleeding), maybe 10 convention art prints, some smaller photos, and a handful of other things (last minute valentine). I'm very pleased with the Pro 100 in all aspects. If you have limited space, that's a consideration, as it really is large and heavy. Otherwise, go snag one from Adorama, or wherever has the best price, and print yourself silly.

Cintiq Companion Review -Surface and Note 10.1- FIGHT

Techno-nerd-wise, this was an interesting month. Our neighbors to the north, Wacom, (in Vancouver, WA), got in touch with me to test their Cintiq Companion for a few weeks and give them feedback/bug reports. At first I thought they'd given me a prototype, but it turns out mine is one of the production models. The fact that it's now my own, my precious, and that it's the same hardware that you, gentle reader, would be purchasing, means the flood gates are open, and I can tell you all about it. How it compares to my faithful Surface Pro, and even a little reference to the new Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition (jeepers, that's a mouthful), which Samsung sent me (thank you). There are a surprising number of people asking for comparisons between the Note and these full-powered PCs, so I'm happy to tell you what I think.

Let's talk Cintiq Companion. When Wacom finally announced it, the first thing people said (as they do) was, "Wah, $2,000+???" Let's look at it this way, and move on: any manufacturer, be they Sony, Microsoft, Fujitsu, etc., charges a premium for a premium spec machine that will not offer drastic real-world performance gains (for most people), over something like the baseline Surface Pro (2), which starts at about a grand. If you load up a comparable Sony machine like the Duo 13 with an i7 CPU and 8GB of RAM, guess where your price point lands? North of 2 grand. And for those who feel they need 8GB of RAM to make their work lives easier (me), just having the option is huge. With the Companion, you're paying dollaz for a pro-spec machine, and one with some serious user-interface advantages for art creation. That's the gist of it.

That leads me into the heart of things; the machine and its interface. Some of what I like:

The build quality is very good. It's heavier than the others I mentioned, but it feels solid in your lap, and the surface area/bevel really works well for its primary purpose as a drawing device. The funny thing about the Note 10.1, by contrast, is that it's lighter and slippery(er), and I really need to set it on something solid for drawing. The Companion stays in place, thanks to rubbery grips, and yes, its almost-four-pound weight.

The surface of the screen also has enough tooth to make drawing a more controlled experience. It's hugely helpful to getting a stroke right the first time. The pen itself is comfortable, and obviously better suited to extended use than the stock Surface or Note 10.1's pen (or the Bamboo Feel I bought for the Surface Pro). Plus, you get additional control with the Companion Pen (buttons, tilt, pressure sensitivity). Tilt, I don't really use (it's often too processor-intensive for my canvas sizes... lag city), but the extra button and the pressure sensitivity are definitely helpful.

Other things that add up:  Battery life is surprisingly good (6-7 hours for twiddling your internet thumbs, about 4 for drawing/working). Two USB 3.0 ports instead of the usual one. The optional bluetooth keyboard has great key action (much more accurate/comfortable typing experience vs Surface Pro), is quite low-profile, and it's USB rechargeable (nice). I've actually spent more time writing script for my next book on the Companion than doing anything else (SUE ME), and I've really enjoyed the little keyboard. The Companion's included tote bag is also very nice (look for it hidden in the packaging, I missed it the first time).

The physical buttons on the bevel and pen go a long way to getting work done efficiently minus a keyboard. For pro applications like Manga Studio and Photoshop, that's a big consideration for those who want real mobility with a device like this. I previously never strayed much from keyboard shortcuts, even with my old Cintiq 21", but because I lacked a keyboard for a while with the Companion, I took time to configure everything and learn what I could do with Wacom's buttons, Radial Menu, and software touch-strips. I came away impressed, and happily efficient in my workflow. That's something you can't do as well with the Surface Pro, the Sony Duo, or the Note. Yes, I made that lovely lap-board to support the Surface's keyboard (wistful sigh), but then its overall weight and footprint is as much or better than the Companion's. I still like my homegrown solution, but the fact is that Wacom designed their Companion with art creation in mind, and the others really did not. There's an appreciable difference in both the feel of getting work done, and in the speed of getting work done when you're on the go, without your keyboard.

The screen is very good. 13 inches is a good compromise for portability/usability, and its resolution is just as sharp as you'd want it to be for graphical interface use (something of a struggle on the Surface Pro). A quick side note: Manga Studio's latest iteration (5.03- free update for people who own 5.0+) has a scalable tablet-friendly interface option that's worth checking out). Colors on the Companion are more accurate than my Surface Pro (not sure about the Pro 2, I know they've made big improvements in their color fidelity).

Those are a lot of the good things, and they make the Companion a great solution for my needs. That said, I've been testing this thing for a month, and I have a clear sense of its faults, some of which may be fixed with software updates. Bear that in mind as you journey with me, into the realm of Nit Picks.

Things I don't like:

The stand functions well for what it is, but what it is is hardly mobile, or very well designed. It seems to me that in V2, Wacom could easily incorporate a multi-stage stand into the device itself without adding much weight, and still retaining the rigidity and strength needed to rest your arm weight on the thing and have it stay put. It's a design challenge, but not an insurmountable one, especially as the computer components themselves shrink with future generations.

Another weird bit is the power button. It's placed right where I touch the device to shift it in my lap, and because of the button's design, it's easily depressed, putting the Companion to sleep (by default- you can change it in the Power Button options in Windows 8, but your shouldn't have to). There's a handy spring-button on the other side of the Companion for locking screen orientation. Making the power button something more like this would solve the problem. It's a weird oversight.

Also annoying is the inability to use this machine as a drawing display for a different computer (ie, a much more powerful workstation). Wacom EU's FAQ on the device says it's a limitation of Windows hardware, lack of interest from consumers, yadda and yadda. I really think this could, and should be done. It's not even about being able to use the device when its hardware is out of date, it's about using the device right now for applications that need more power than it can muster with its own internals. This uses a ULV processor, of the same ilk as the Surface Pro. The i7 vs i5 means you'll see maybe 10% additional horsepower. That's not as much as some people may be expecting. These machines are plenty fast for most illustration purposes, but just as I run into limitations on the Surface Pro, I run into similar limits with the Companion. They both comfortably process 11x17 600 dpi color files with a good number of layers. Double the canvas size, though, as I need to for Batman '66's digital edition, and things bog down. Again, that's a fairly small fraction of my work, but it's an important one. I'd like to either have a full-voltage chip inside this thing, and/or the option to hook it up to a much more powerful PC when I need to cut through a jungle of giant art files. Quick note: If you find brush strokes lagging on the Companion, make sure you have its power mode set to 'High Performance', not 'Balanced'. Click the battery icon and select 'More Power Options' to find it. 

Finally, there are a few quirks with drivers and software that could be improved. Touch and gesture support is the least configurable of the Companion's typically robust control-set. It's also the most finicky. Bringing up the software keyboard, for example, often de-registers the cursor in a text field, forcing me to bring up the keyboard, then tap the text field again to start entering text. A small annoyance, but it's there until they fix it in future drivers.

Driver and software issues may not happen to everyone in the same measure they happened to me, but they're part and parcel of a first-gen device like this (and, let's face it, most Windows devices), so you should approach a purchase knowing you may need to sort through a few more software woes than you would with something like the Surface Pro, which comes straight from Microsoft (still, that machine isn't perfect either).

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So there you have it: the good, and the not-so-good. In the end, I feel the good of this machine far outweighs its faults, and I'm very happy with it. My wife now has the Surface Pro, and I'm forging ahead with my digital art creation using the Companion. It feels good, it functions well, and it's by and large a thoughtfully designed art tool. It has plenty of room to improve, but so do the other options. If you're a professional, the Surface Pro 2 with 8GB of RAM is a compelling option, but one lacking the interface and form factor considerations of this machine. With the Surface, you really have to get the keyboard and find a way to use it on a flat surface, whereas the Companion can function pretty well without one (for art). Comparing them that way, you're looking at saving about 500 bucks if you go the Surface route, barring warranty and some extras (these mostly in Wacom's favor). To me, the Companion is worth it. If you're like me, and your file sizes are too large to make the cloud a viable means of working in the studio and at home on multiple devices, the Companion may be a very good solution for keeping everything with you, anytime and anywhere you need to work.

Then there's this little guy. Isn't he darling? That lovely screen, that lightness. It's a nice tablet.

The Note 10.1 is less money yet than the Surface and Companion, and also less useful in its capacity for getting work done, or drawing something easily/accurately. It's a totally different piece of hardware, nice for media consumption and a doodle/rough, but in no way capable of being your only computer/digital art device. Drawing on it is a bit laggy and inaccurate; I was surprised given its specs, but my Galaxy Note 2 phone actually draws and navigates with less lag. Weird.

If you have questions about the hardware I'm reviewing (and I know you do, based on my Surface Pro review), I'm glad to help. Google probably knows better than I do (and is faster at responding), but I'll do what I can.

Til next time!

This Guy Made an Awesome Surface Pro Lap Board

 

Jeff Ketter at Icono Blast took my Surface Pro lapboard design and made his own (beautiful) version. It looks extremely slick! He took the time to really polish it up and make refinements to my original design, and I dig his additions (camera hole, mouse-pad grip, jet black finish, etc...). If you're looking to build a lap board, you should definitely check out his detailed post.

Nothing like a little shared Nerd Joy to start the Monday. Thanks for sharing, Jeff!

Surface Pro Pen Pressure for All

They did it! After three months of no pen-pressure support in programs like Adobe Photoshop, Painter, and Paint Tool SAI, Microsoft and Wacom have worked out a driver for the Surface Pro that fixes it all. Head over here to snag it:

www.wacom.com/feeldriver

This is a great thing for a couple reasons.

Number one, it makes the Surface Pro a useful device no matter what creative programs you run. You can now get one with the confidence that pressure support will work as you'd expect across all your major programs.

Number two, it works very well. Better, in fact, than previous Wacom pressure drivers I've used on tablet PC's. Remember that Fujitsu T902? It, and other systems like it suffer from less-than ideal palm rejection (meaning every once in a while your canvas goes "SEE YA, I'm going over here now because you touched me with your hand before that pen tip, and that hurts me"). There's also typically a weird bug where every fiftieth brush stroke or so, these systems randomly lose pressure support, leaving you with the burden of hitting 'undo' frequently. Granted, the driver's only been out for a day, but so far I've experienced none of that with the new Wacom driver on the Surface. It works more like what I expect from Microsoft's Ink API, where palm rejection and pen pressure are very consistent. This all makes me a happy nerd.

In other news, I've done another upgrade to my setup in the form of a different pen. This is the Wacom Bamboo Feel (I got the Carbon, because it's more durable and has a nice weight in my hand). I find it to be more accurate than the stock Surface pen, and more similar to the calibration of the pen on my old Cintiq. Explanation:

With the stock Surface Pro pen, the little doohickey that says "Here I am" to your on-screen cursor is placed slightly back in the barrel of the pen, instead of the pen's tip. This means that the cursor is usually hidden beneath the pen tip instead of being just in front of the pen tip, as you'd be used to if you use a Cintiq, or other tablet device.  This picture's taken from the side, so you can actually see the cursor, but when viewed normally, facing the screen, you totally can't see it. There are attempted calibration workarounds to this, and I tried them all and found them insufficient.

Switching to the Bamboo Feel, you can see the difference in registration: that cursor is right in front of the pen tip, where you expect it to be. This makes joining fine lines in a drawing and picking through tiny interface elements on the Surface's hi-res screen MUCH easier, at least for me. Your mileage may vary, but I'd say give it a shot if you aren't satisfied with the stock stylus's accuracy.

Tech blogging complete. Moving back to pretty drawr-rings.

Surface Pro Lap Board

 

People have been asking for specifics on how I made the lap board for my Surface Pro. It's a pretty simple system, but one that's very effective for using the Pro on my lap or on an inclined desk, like I normally use for drawing. And it's a great conversation piece at parties, because now you can bring all your work to parties and sit in a corner and draw Batman.

The basic problem I needed to solve: The Surface Pro's keyboard can obviously lay flat with the machine, but it's very thin, and attaches just beneath the screen, leaving about 5/8" of space beneath where it would rest most naturally. If you try and type on it like this, you're always pushing the whole keyboard around and missing keystrokes. It just doesn't work. With the lapboard, I get a perfect support so I can type anywhere easily, and more importantly, have access to my art programs'  keyboard shortcuts.

Blah, blah, blah, you say. How did you make it?

Like this:

The lap board: One piece of smooth 1/4" MDF, cut to 11" by 15.5"

The keyboard support: One piece of something that's 5/8" thick, 11" wide and 6.25" tall. I used a piece of wood for this that wasn't thick enough and added a few pieces of thin cardboard to make up the difference. Thus, there's duct tape on my otherwise nicely wood-glued assembly. You need not do that. Just make it 5/8".

The bumper-things. Two lengths of 3/4" trim, cut to 10.75" each - the kind I got is like one quarter of a cylinder (There's probably efficient terms for all these things, but I'm not Bob the Builder, sorry). This makes clearance for the angled edges of the Surface Pro. The Vapor MG casing  scratches really easily, so I made sure to round things off wherever I could. The upper piece is the only one that comes into contact with the Pro. The lower one is optional, and doesn't do much but give a sense that the whole thing's a solid slab.

Surface cushion. I don't know what you call this. It's that weird non-skid stuff that old women put in cabinets to keep their frog mugs from sliding around. 10.75" by 6.25" I hot-glued this to the lap board. There may be a better way. Adhesive spray, perhaps?

Hugs. Two rubber bands, to hold the Pro to the board and provide another non-skid effect to the under-side (provides a little more security on my smooth, inclined desk). I want to find some black ones that are thicker, for aesthetic purposes and to hold it a little tighter. For now, these work.

So, once you have all that, use some wood glue and clamps to piece it together, then do a little Dremel action to make the rubber band slots and sand down the sharp places, and boom. You can now do your work while lounging. It's work and laziness together!

This gets it all done really well, but it would be cool to try v2 with lighter materials. If anyone wants to give me a 3D printer, I accept.

Have fun!

My Transition to Surface Pro and Manga Studio

My fellow creative-industry Apple users: prepare thyselves. Heresy lies ahead. You may not like what I have to say. You may think I'm batty. That's fine. For myself, I'm at the end of a months-long quest for a more flexible workflow, and I'm having quite a bit of fun. It was a bumpy road getting here, but for me, moving my digital art production from a giant Cintiq to the Surface Pro was the right move. If you have a similar desire to break your desk-bound chains and put on the shackles of forever having your work with you, read on. We can share the crazy.

What I wanted: a truly portable Cintiq replacement with good ergonomics (boo to you, tablet PC), a full OS (boo to you, Samsung Note) and enough horsepower to run professional software with ease (boo to most of the rest of you). Tablet PCs (as opposed to slate PCs/hybrids/whathaveyous) have been around for ages, and initially, I tried one of the latest and greatest, the Fujitsu T902.

It had tons of power (16 GB of RAM) and the standard Wacom digitizer, but it proved problematic for several reasons. Its hardware was awkward and difficult to hold (for me), its drivers were frustratingly glitchy, and its screen was lackluster. On paper, its hardware specs meant that all my software would run well, so I really wanted to like it. In the end, it just wasn't the right fit, so I returned it and continued the hunt.

I was initially turned off from the Surface Pro for its smaller screen and RAM limit of 4 GB. Photoshop users who work on large color files know the importance of RAM. Illustrating for print, 4 GB is adequate, but 8GB can make a dramatic difference. To that end, I started looking at a new Thinkpad called the Helix that's very similar to the Surface Pro, with some nice perks. It has a larger screen, double the pen sensitivity, better battery life, better keyboard, and the option for 8GB of RAM. Unfortunately, it was supposed to come out in January, but missed its ship date several times over, and as of now, it's still not widely available. After purchasing that T902, I sold my Cintiq, because I play it fast and loose like that. After returning the T902, I was without a digital art tool. You may ask why someone who makes their living with digital art tools would put themselves in such a position. To you, I say, in a child of Bill Cosby voice, "I-DOH-NOH!"

There's been a lot of mixed press around the Surface, and a whole bunch of Apple users (I've been one for years) will forever be set against anything non-Apple. For them, the closest option in this category is the Modbook Pro, but it lacks a keyboard, has a non-touch optimized OS, and is ridiculously expensive. Like, three times the price of a Surface Pro expensive.

Back to the Surface, there's also the concern for digital artists that several months after its release, it still lacks a pressure-sensitive driver for WinTab coded software. All this gobbledygook means is that the Adobe Creative Suite, Painter, and other major creative applications lack pressure support (imagines self as Microsoft engineer and smacks head). Usually, you can just download a Wacom driver and apply it to a system like this, but in this case, Microsoft monkeyed with the Wacom hardware/software and made it proprietary, meaning, no driver for you. Yikes. Another annoying issue in trying to run the Creative Suite on the Surface: you can't hold and click the tool bars to access sub-tools with the pen. It's some kind of problem with the driver not registering a click-and-hold in Adobe software. Beats me. At any rate, those are big points against the Surface. Will these problems be fixed? Microsoft tells me so, but it was almost enough to get me off the boat, until I made an important discovery called Manga Studio 5. More on that later.

So what does the Surface Pro get right? I like the shape of it, I like the portability, I like the quality of the screen, in spite of its high resolution making some interface elements tiny. Bifocal users, beware. Ironically, one of its best qualities for my use-case is something Microsoft never intended - laying the screen and keyboard flat so I can work on an inclined surface, like a drafting table, and have access to keyboard shortcuts. One of the things I disliked about my Cintiq was the clunky nature of using a keyboard for shortcuts when that big screen was taking up so much desk space. Wacom tries to fix this by giving you programmable buttons on the Cintiq itself, but somehow those are never enough for me. I guess I use mad keyboard shortcuts. With the Surface, my keyboard shortcuts are directly under that little screen in a very convenient place. It works well for me, especially after I built a little custom lapboard, which supports the keyboard in a solid way and holds everything in place. This way I can use the machine on my desk or on my lap equally well.

Right now, people are either shaking their heads in disbelief or nodding them with nerdly DIY approval. Again, I'm having fun, and it actually works. I can pack the little lapboard in my backpack with the Surface, and head to my studio, or a client's office, and go to work with naught more than a chair. Just a couple days ago I worked on contract for a local design firm and did 100 storyboards in seven hours with this setup.

But what about the Creative Suite, and all that driver brokenness?

Soon after I picked up the Surface, I faced that problem. I had a job I needed to do, and no functional Creative Suite with which to do it. I went looking for a temporary solution. It turns out that some very good software does support Microsoft's drivers, including Sketchbook Pro and Manga Studio. I'd never given Manga Studio a chance, because I was so used to Photoshop and got turned off by the clunky interface of older versions. People lauded it, but I was too stubborn and set in my ways. I knew Photoshop wasn't a good replacement for drawing with pen and paper, so I didn't expect Manga Studio to be much better. I figured Wacom hardware was the main limit between what I could get from traditional media and what I could get from digital. With digital tools, I've been used to getting maybe 50% of the control and finesse I can achieve with good old pencils and brushes on paper- that's with the pro-grade Cintiq. It's fine for coloring, edits, and quick and dirty jobs like storyboarding, but from what I'd experienced, it couldn't hold its own against pencils and paper.

Manga Studio changed that for me in a big way.

With its latest version (5), Manga Studio has a fancy-pantsy new brush engine. What was already markedly better than Photoshop became hugely better with this latest release. I can now get results that are 90-95% of what I'd expect to get with traditional media, and that's just the brush engine. There's also superior capabilities in terms of layout, coloring, and perspective tools. I came to my studio as an evangelist, and immediately got 15 colleagues to make the leap with me. So far, everyone's digging it, and thanks to the new version's UI being similar to Photoshop's, the transition hasn't been difficult.

They aren't even paying me to say this, but listen: If you're an illustrator and haven't given Manga Studio 5 a shot, please do. I think you'll be pleased. The current Debut version lacks a few of the capabilities of their previous EX version, but an update's coming this summer that adds those features back in. In the meantime, you have a fantastic piece of software that has all the brush-creation, actions, CMYK color space, and tools you never thought of, for like, so little money it's hard to take seriously. Try it.

I made the switch to doing all my comics pencils in Manga Studio on the Surface with Batman '66, which I'm leading off for DC. Likewise, an Eerie short story for Dark Horse. This is an example of my Manga Studio blue-line art, and it's really indistinguishable from my traditional pencils. I can then print it out on our large format printer and ink it traditionally. That way I don't have to spend my whole life in front of a screen, and I have original art to sell if I choose to do that (and choose to do that, I will).

But even if I didn't want to do inks traditionally, it's possible to get really good inking results on the Surface with Manga Studio. Here's an example of our launch art. After they had me execute this (pencils in Manga Studio, then inked traditionally), DC came back and requested I expand all the characters to full figures. I was able to bring the original art into Manga Studio (I'd already colored it there) and expand each figure and their colors with seamless results.

I've even started playing with digital painting, which I haven't done before, using the Surface/Manga Studio combo, and I'm really digging the results. It makes me want to get out my oil paints, and that's about as high a compliment as I can pay a digital tool (I've kept those paints in a box since college).

By the way, when you get Manga Studio, as you will, be sure to check out Ray Frenden's MS5 brush set. I'm using it daily, and it's fabulous.

So that's my journey so far. There seems to be a lot more on the horizon in terms of these portable solutions, so things will only get better. For the sake of artists who will never leave the Apple ecosystem, it would be great if Cupertino tried their hand at something like this, but Steve Jobs once said, "if they include a stylus, they've failed", so that's probably not gonna happen. Even so, if you're well heeled enough to have two Cintiq-like devices, one for your office, and one for the road, I'd recommend something along the lines of the Surface.

Or just be crazy like me. Bite the bullet and make this your sole computer/art tablet/etc. It's scary, but it's also the first time that upgrading to a new system actually made me money, since I sold my Cintiq and Macbook for much more than the Surface cost (and they were both four years old).

And now I can run free as bird, unchained by the... oh, yeah. Work's with me everywhere now.

Back to it!