Tehachapi's Artist Community - grungehobbit.com

http://direct.wacom.com/stores/5/Cintiq_21UX_P785C48.cfm#

 There does exist a monitor of sorts that is also pressure sensitive tablet. It is the Wacom Cintig. Do I want one??? You Bet! It has been out on the market for a few years now. The price still runs around 2 grand for one. You see your program just as you do on the monitor, but this allows you draw directly on the screen, so actually you and look at what you are drawing as you would naturally. (You don't have to train yourself to look away from your drawing hand ...that took me a very long time to get comfortable with.)

Size of a tablet helps too. The larger the surface, the more natural it is to draw, unless you usually draw very small. My first pressure sensitive tablet was a great 18" x 18" (maybe 14" ?) by Calcomp, a competitor of Wacom at the time. It was costly too but luckily I was on a beta-tester list and I was given it to in exchange for testing it out for manufacturer ...before they went belly-up. I no longer could use this board because it wasn't compatible with Mac OS X. (Mike at Hillybeans has my board now... last I heard he was happy with it.)

Now I have a "cheap" generic 9" x 12" and you know what? ...it works just fine! It is missing a few bells and whistles of the Wacom tablets, but for under $100 (mine was about $60) I still have a decent size drawing surface.

I did a little bit of digital painting using Gimp a free paint program you can download . Ive never tried the tablet. Id like to get one . I never heard of a bamboo pen.

Personaly I love that you can undo things and have a range of tools you can try and if you dont like it can get rid of it or change it. No change is a permament mistake. I painted with oils and once you made a mistake you had to scrape that paint off there if you were smart enough to catch the mistake before the paint was dry. In which case youd have to redo the whole area.
I do think with photoshop its so much easier to manipulate photos rather than drawing at all and making it look like you drew or painted with a paint filter.

So thats where the bad rap comes in. I am a real artist and I think digital art is an awesome advance in creating art. I also have experiance as a 3d cg modeler where you build a person in a 3d wire mess then add digital skin.
Have you tried any of the 3d programs like Bryce? I think you should cause it allows you to make landscapes and play around in dimentional space. Great for just visalizing and planing out ideas. What kind of aspirations do you have for your art or is it just for fun? What s you vision or message based on?

 Drawing with a pressure sensitive tablet is every bit a drawing art medium as another other method that creates original art. I love the fact that as a tool a computer can help do this, but the person (artist) still makes the the decisions of what color, lighting source, line thickness, what texture to emulate, whether it be manipulation or freestyle drawing. I use and view my computer and programs as a giant pallet. The thrill comes with coming up with an individual technique to achieve the end result, just like any other medium.

Personally, if I never have to do a "REAL" airbrush drawing again in my life I couldn't be happier! The computer helps to do this art form so well and practically like the real deal... you still need to select or "mask" areas, and the tablet's pressure sensitive pen (once you set its parameters) lets you glide across the image or paint details just like doing it by hand! (The exception being if you are working large on a 3D surface ...then, you would still require the real deal, unless you get a big enough print that you can transfer or attach.) If you make a mistake you can simply take it back, and most importantly, with a computer you can't possibly "oops" spill paint all over a project that you have been working hours on! (Been there, done that.)

I guess where digital art comes into question is when the art is not original (using clip art or someone else's art or photos without permission) and/or is manipulated just because it "can" be done so easily in the computer, or merely just a push of a button using a filter. Then again, if I had the money to purchase extra doodads and fancy filters I might be talking a different tune! (I am still stuck in CS1.)

I did just purchase (but haven't yet played with) "ArtRage," a painting program, a lot cheaper than Corell Painter, however it does a lot of the same things. I am on MAC, and this also comes for PC.

Indeed, you have, thank you Sparks.   You are a "real" artist to me. :-) I can't draw a stickman on paper or otherwise.