Use the WACOM Graphire Tablet to Develop Your Skills!

From my experience, I’ve drawn with both a mouse and a digital stylus. Perhaps the only reason why I used the mouse in the beginning is because, as I was young, I couldn’t afford a digital stylus.

Personally, the mouse is too blocky and unresponsive for your artistic needs. However, that does not mean you can’t draw with it. You definitely can. It’s just that it takes ages due to the lack of control!

This is why the stylus is important over time!

1. The natural way to draw!

Think back to when you first when to school. How did your teachers teach you how to write? What instrument did they give you? Surely, it was a pencil, pen, crayon, or even a marker.

I do not know anybody that learns how to write using a block!

Obviously, if we learn all using a block, we would be better at controlling the mouse. But, for the most part, we all learn with a stick that we hold between our thumb and our figures.

Due to the form of the writing and drawing instrument, why would you want to use a block to learn? Moreover, it subtracts time from developing a natural movement that you have used since your early days of childhood!

That is how the digital stylus game into light. It’s because there is a demand, from digital art artist, for a product that simulates how to draw on the computer.

2. Why a WACOM Graphire?

Perhaps the biggest advantage of getting a WACOM Graphire would be the price. At approximately 100 American dollars for the 4x5 inch pad, it’s not expensive considering how much it costs to buy paints and paint brushes these days!

In the package, you get the tablet, the stylus, the stylus holder, and a tablet dependent mouse. If you got a bit of money, about 100 more dollars, you can upgrade to the 6x8 inch tablet.

To be honest, I don’t find that a larger tablet is that useful as it uses the exact same processing unit and functionality that can be found on the smaller tablet. Plus, if you wanted to work on a larger workspace, just zoom in on your painting on your computer!

For beginner 2d digital artists, it’s probably one of the best purchases you will make!

3. The Graphire features needed for painting

Normally, a mouse has, well, one point of sensitivity. It is either on or off! The advantage of this is that a mouse can distribute even pressure to an area given a pressure setting in the digital art program that you are using.

A WACOM Graphire tablet has about 512 levels of sensitivity. In addition to getting the pressure sensitivity to one, just like the mouse, you can also set it to use all 512 levels of sensitivity to vary your brush strokes.

Usually, when you use pressure sensitivity on the stylus, it changes the width of your brush as well as the opacity depending on how hard you press. It works just like how you would hold a paint brush!

And of course, being designed to look like a pencil, your hands are at home with the feel of a stylus rather than a mouse.

4. Should you upgrade?

Once you get proficient at drawing with the WACOM Graphire, you will notice that the screen on tablet is full of scratch marks and the stylus tip is getting worn out. Normally, WACOM is nice enough to give you a replacement tip already out of the package for those occasions.

A WACOM Graphire tablet can last a long time. I still have the very first generation of the Graphire I bought in 1999 which I still use it to this very day! But eventually, I would like a new one just like how anyone would like a new computer.

There are a few choices out there from WACOM. Like I mentioned earlier, you can buy another Graphire model with different dimensions. Again, I wouldn’t recommend that.

The smaller entry pad is enough for most beginners. However if you do feel like upgrading, I would actually get another model.

So, instead of getting another WACOM Graphire, you can get the Intuos model. Why? It’s because the Intuos tablet gives you 1024 levels of sensitivity in addition to tilt sensors on the stylus! Thus, it gives you more control than the Graphire tablet.

Regardless of what digital stylus you choose, I guaranteed you will need one soon. The mouse just doesn’t cut it in the long run! Other than that, keep motivated to learn and use your tools to the best of your ability!

Return from WACOM Graphire Tablet to Digital Art Tools.
Return from WACOM Graphire Tablet to the 2d Digital Art Guide.