An Example of How I Use my Wacom

I have a Wacom Intuos 3 graphics pad and people who hear I am an artist often think that I use it to draw.

Well, not exactly.  I use it more for playing online computer games than for drawing!

But it's real function in my life is for retouching line art and photos.  Generally when cartooning I start with a soft pencil on newsprint and then transfer the image by hand to white paper where I ink over the pencil.  Next I take a picture of my drawing with a digital camera.  My Canon Powershot has a 1Gb multimedia card that I can insert into my laptop's card reader.  I open the file with Paintshop Pro (the last version before JASC was bought out includes PSP and Animation Shop) and that is when I start using the graphics pad.

Here is an editing sequence showing how I got from the hand drawn cartoon to a drawing I posted previously:

 

Comments

[Nomad]

I bought one of these about two months ago and used it for about one month to create "faux" sketches. I can explain how that works if you want sometime. Still, I feel a bit embarrassed because I am not sure I am using it to its highest potential yet. Thanks for the short tutorial and the clean clear blog layout.

[Janet Ann]

Lol, I think its highest potential is for gaming, but that may be because I haven't been retired all that long, and would rather play than work. Your gallery is nice. I like the Aegean Images.