So I finally got me a drawing tablet and I’m still all thumbs with digital drawing.
Though, what I mean to say is….I got me a drawing tablet and didn’t take me until several months later I finally got it working.
Let’s rewind to the Holiday Season of 2023. I finally decided it was time to upgrade to an actual pen display tablet. But there was no way I was going to shell out for a Wacom Cintiq as much as I’d love one. And as it was the holidays, the relentless ads of holiday ‘deals’ sprung up on the feed.
A few of my fellow artist pals suggested the Huion tablets – they’re just as good without the cost of selling an organ, limb, or one month’s rent or 3 Round Table pizzas. So fast forward to Christmas. I tear the box open, wrestle with the cords, plugged that baby in only to have the single USB port of my – now ancient- Surface Pro 3 freak out and plead that it doesn’t have enough power to, uh….power the tablet.
“Haha, surely I just have to turn it off and turn it on again,” I chortle. Rinse and repeat until I had to accept that I wouldn’t be using my new toy anytime soon. Dejected, I thought my only options were to try to return it, wait until I get a new laptop, or find someone to buy it off of me. And, OF COURSE I was already past the return window.
But I had to at least give it some effort in getting it to work. So I reached out to some of my more tech-savvy pals who suggested a powered USB hub. Would it work? Maybe.
Fast forward a few more months later and I decide (read: remember) to order one. And when it finally came in the mail, I thought – surely this is the one piece of the puzzle I needed. Wrestled with another set of cords along with the triple headed cord of the tablet to find out that…uh…while the USB port of my laptop didn’t cry and scream power surge, the tablet only half worked. That is – the tablet worked similar to an Intuos.
Maybe I could’ve settled. But that would’ve defeated the purpose of getting a pen display.
I guess I should’ve realized the HDMI part of that hydra-esque cord wasn’t optional. And guess what other port my laptop doesn’t have?
Ok, so it DOES have a display port…a very tiny one. Luckily nearly everything has an x to y adapter these days so there went another $8 or so to buy one from one of the countless brands featuring all caps in their name that I’ve never heard of. But it had the most high ratings and that’s all I could go with.
SURELY this is it, right? The moment of truth….
My poor desk barely has any space so I had to do a bit of improvising.
Can’t say I’m used to it just yet. Took me a while to realize the display isn’t a touch screen so no pinching and sliding to zoom and rotate. The quick buttons on the side are also a thing to get used to. Pen pressure and all that other fun stuff that I never bother to tinker with is another thing to deal with if I want to draw comfortably.
Until then, I toyed with it with a WIP Veggielore and some Boba Boi redraw.
Admittedly, the limited space I have does make using it a bit daunting to set up. But I can make it work if I actually kept my spaces clean! I also confess that I still felt much more comfy using the Surface until I made the effort to practice with a few redraws of traditional drawings.
Do you draw on a tablet? Or is there a tablet you’ve been wanting to try?