How to improve your creativity: Buy a Wacom Cintiq LCD Pen Tablet

Not since I purchased my PowerMac 6100 (lovely called the pizza box due to it’s form factor) have I been this excited about a piece of hardware. I am of course talking about the recent order of the Wacom Cintiq LCD Pen Tablet (12WX), now keep in mind this is NOT a review since I have yet to receive this bad boy (that is sometime late in January for us Canadians!) No, I am excited because of all the amazing video’s I have scene like the review over at Gizmodo. I watched this video on YouTube, and I ordered the unit the same day.    

The 411
Forget about the specs (and for a moment that the small one costs like $1200 bones CAD.) What is amazing about this product is the fact that that it gives the artist direct contact with his/her artwork in the digital world. As things progress you will see more and more products like this that connect the organic world with the digital world. As an artist I have always found the mouse, keyboard and even my old school Wacom tablet to be very limiting in terms of the gestures I can produce when I’m designing something. And while I enjoying sketching in my handy notebook, scanning in pages is soooo slow and time consuming. Regardless if you are an illustrator, retoucher, or even a 3D artist this product can enhance your work flow. I am particularly excited to try this tablet out with Pixelologic’s ZBrush. (an organic 3D modeler) I can’t imagine how much fun this will bring back to my work in PhotoShop. I truly think this product will improve artist creativity, it will enable us to flow more between human gesture and the digital world. Check back in late January, I will post photos and reviews of the tablet when it arrives.