Technology Archives - Page 3 of 7

Posted on January 30, 2016January 30, 2016 by Patrick LaMontagne

Painting a Lion on the iPad

At one time, I experimented quite a bit with painting on the original iPad. When it would no longer support new updates, I replaced it with the iPad Mini with Retina Display, which is a horrible name, so it’s now just referred to as the iPad Mini 2.

Having tried a number of apps over the years and more than a few styli, I finally settled on the combo I liked best, which was the procreate app and the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus 2, another unwieldy moniker. So, let’s just call it the ICS2.

While you’d be hard pressed to hear me say anything negative about Wacom’s Intuos tablets or Cintiq displays, the ICS2 has had some issues. Complaints of poor tracking and cursor alignment aren’t hard to find. It works well with some apps, not with others. I’ll simply say that there are plenty of people unhappy with the stylus, especially if they have the full-sized iPad 2.

I haven’t done much iPad painting lately because I’ve been busy working. In my home office, I have Wacom’s Cintiq 24HD display and when I want to draw elsewhere in the house, I have the more portable 13HD display. With these two professional options and my constant deadlines, drawing on the iPad hasn’t been a priority.

Recently, however, I stopped by the Apple store in Calgary and took the new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for a test drive. A little later, I found myself in the Microsoft store comparing it to the Surface Pro 4.

I quite liked the iPad Pro and Pencil, easily the best stylus I’ve ever used on a device. It felt fine in my hand, had a contact feel I liked, was flawless in its accuracy and I wanted to use it more. While I didn’t get to try it with procreate on the store model, the sketch program they had on the tablet was good enough. I didn’t really like the Surface Pro drawing experience, but many people do.

My desktop computer is robust, I’ve got a powerful laptop, the Wacom displays I mentioned and an iPad Mini 2. I currently can’t justify buying an iPad Pro. It’s quite expensive and so is the pencil. It’s a want, not a need.

Playing around with it, though, got me itching to try some more iPad painting with the device and stylus I do have. This lion is the result.

At first, having not used procreate in quite some time; I was still having some issues with accuracy. I had to paint while holding the iPad in portrait mode. Whenever I tried to paint in landscape mode, the registration would be off. The same thing happens with Autodesk’s Sketchbook Mobile, another impressive app. From what I’ve read, it seems to be a flaw in the ICS2 software or hardware, not playing nice with third party apps. It’s frustrating.

Not one to easily give up, I started going through the settings again and found the Writing Style options. By trying different ones, I found the right setting for me and the accuracy came back! Painting this lion suddenly became a lot more fun when I didn’t have to fight the technology.
The procreate app not only comes with an excellent selection of brushes for many different art styles, but their brush engine is quite good. I’ve always been one to design my own brushes, especially for hair, and procreate allows me to do that. It involves just as much trial and error experimentation as Photoshop brush design does, but by continually tweaking, I managed some pretty impressive results.

The downside of painting on the iPad…

Palm rejection does not seem to be flawless on any device with any stylus. I rest my hand on the screen when I draw and paint. Had I gone to art school or been professionally trained, they would have broken me of that, no doubt. The problem is that the device registers the palm/heel touch as an intentional brush stroke on many devices/apps so you end up with digital smudges and poor pen strokes from the stylus because the app is trying to interpret two points of contact.

My workaround is that I bought a pair of glove inserts, cut the index, middle, and thumb from it. This allows me to still use the touch features, but rest my hand on the screen without a problem. Fair warning, a very thin costume glove won’t work. The iPad will still sense the contact of your palm or heel of your hand.

Here’s a photo. Disregard the blown-out screen image as that’s not how it actually looks when I’m painting.

The second thing is that whenever I paint on the iPad, I have the display brightness set in the middle of the slider or lower. My Cintiq displays are set quite low as well, both the display brightness and backlight. It’s just easier on my eyes, especially since I can spend many hours in a day in front of a screen.

As a consequence, I usually have to do some colour and light adjustments to anything I paint on the iPad, or it will look far too dark when it’s done. For this, I use Snapseed and the relatively new Photoshop Fix, which are both quality image editing apps.

Even still, when this was as close to done as I could get it; I opened it in Photoshop on my desktop and did a couple more small lighting adjustments. All of the painting, however, was done on the iPad.

So, what’s the verdict?

It’s unlikely I’m going to be doing a lot more iPad painting with the tools I’ve got. It took longer to paint this than it would have on my professional displays and the result is not as nice or detailed as that which would have been achieved had I painted it all on my desktop or laptop.

Would that change if I bought an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil? I don’t know, but honestly, I kind of doubt it, even with the larger surface area to work with. I would still like to spend more time with it, though. In all things, however, it pays to experiment, especially with art. You never know until you try and this was worth doing, just for the experience.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Posted on December 11, 2014December 11, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

An Opportunity to Give

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by the Banff Community High School to speak to their digital media and art classes about the type of work I do.

In the past, these presentations have been more about editorial cartooning, especially when students are studying politics and current events. It provides a window into the difference between journalism and opinion, satire and commentary. There is value there, and I think those talks are important, too, but my passion lies with the other artwork I do, so I was really looking forward to this one, as it was about the art, not the politics. To paraphrase the teacher who contacted me, it was basically an opportunity for students to be exposed to yet another creative medium of expression, one they might not have considered.

I’ve had plenty of folks give me a leg up in my relatively short career as an artist and whenever an opportunity like this comes up, I realize it’s my responsibility to pay that forward. So, if I’ve got the time, I’m happy to help if I can.

I was scheduled to do two presentations to two different age groups. A slide show of my work, a little background on how I got into it, the type of work I do, plus a glimpse into how the actual drawing and painting is done.

In the back and forth emails leading up to the presentations, I became aware that the Banff Community High School didn’t yet have any drawing tablets. School budgets being what they are, students often don’t get all that we would like them to have. I thought that showing them how to draw and paint digitally and then denying them the means to do so would be a little cruel on my part. Hey, look at this delicious candy I’m eating…you can’t have any.

Over the past decade, I’ve been fortunate to have made some valuable contacts in this industry, and some even better friends. While I’ve used their products since 1997, it wasn’t until 2010 that I started getting to know a few people at Wacom quite well. Over the past four years, I’ve done webinars, tutorials and hangouts with them; written blog posts, recorded videos, done demos at their booth at Photoshop World, and even ran a booth on my own for them in Calgary at a Kelby Training Seminar. I’d hardly want to give the impression that this relationship is one-sided , however, so without getting into specifics, let’s just say that Wacom has been very good to me in return. It’s a very symbiotic relationship.

Needless to say, I’m lucky to call a few of them friends. With that in mind, without shame, I requested a discount on a couple of tablets, so that I could give them to the school. I figured I could afford it and two tablets are much better than none.

Much to my delight, my friend (who is choosing to remain anonymous, dammit!) donated five Intuos 5 Medium tablets to the school, free of charge. For those unfamiliar with these devices, I could do all of the work I do on one of these tablets. These kids aren’t being asked to settle for inferior hardware, mostly because in my experience, Wacom doesn’t make inferior hardware. While I’m currently using their 13HD and 24HD displays (seen on screen in photo below), I have had an Intuos 5 Medium tablet for quite a while and if you went to my portfolio, a lot of it has been done with that device.

I was pretty thrilled at the donation, and it would have been more than enough.

But then I realized that because they don’t yet have the Adobe CC software, the students had something to draw and paint on, now they needed a program to do it with. Lately, I’ve been using Autodesk Sketchbook quite a bit and thoroughly enjoying it. Their app for iPhone and iPad are the best I’ve seen for mobile art and those are only outshone by their desktop version. I’ve been doing a lot of sketching for my editorial cartoons with that lately, so I knew the students would benefit from it.

Even though I haven’t had a long relationship with Autodesk, Wacom works closely with them and had recently introduced me to some of the folks in charge, a direct result of the work I’ve been doing with their software. Since I was already on a roll, I sent an email to their Product Marketing Manager, told him about Wacom’s generosity with the tablets and asked if I could get some licenses for software to go with them. He simply asked how many I needed, and then made it happen.

Then, while mentioning all of this privately to an industry author friend of mine, (who also wants to remain anonymous), he asked if they could use any books. I told him they couldn’t be software specific as they’d be wasted if the students didn’t have those tools. So he asked his publisher Peachpit what they could do and sure enough they donated half a dozen books on design and photography, titles that the students will benefit from no matter what software they’re using.

While bragging about this on my Facebook page, a few people made references to these being great Christmas presents and ironic that this here often-Scrooge gets to play Santa. In truth, it really is just a coincidence of timing that I was asked to speak to the students this close to Christmas. I’ve no doubt that had I asked these wonderful folks for their assistance in September, they would have come through in the same fashion. I’ve made a point of thanking all of these people individually, and I know the school has as well.

But, I wanted to write about it for a couple of reasons. One, these companies and people deserve a little positive PR for helping out, even though that isn’t why any of them did it. Trust me on that.

Secondly, I would encourage you to consider how easy it is to give of your time and resources, no matter what it is that you do. You can’t always say yes to these requests, and over the years, I’ve had to decline these presentations almost as often as I’ve accepted them. Everybody has obligations and responsibilities, we’re all busy, we can’t give as often as we’d like. But it sure feels good when you can.

I would also encourage you to realize that when you need somebody’s help, especially to benefit someone else, don’t be afraid to ask. You’d be surprised how often people will say Yes when you need them to give a little, especially when it involves kids and education. If they say No, that’s OK, too, and don’t hold it against them.

It’s true that I was the one who got to stand up at the front of the room to reveal all of these great gifts from perfect strangers on Tuesday, and I got to do it twice. I wanted you to know that I was just the messenger. The real thanks go to my friends and colleagues, the ones who said Yes when they were granted an opportunity to give to complete strangers.

Thanks again, folks. You know who you are.

Posted on January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

An Editorial Cartoon in Two Minutes

This is just over an hour of sketching, drawing, and painting, condensed down to two minutes. From sketch to finished work created digitally using a Wacom Cintiq 24HD display and Photoshop CC. While the majority of my editorial cartoons are sketched on paper first and then scanned, this is pretty much the whole process I go through for each cartoon. This is best viewed at full screen in HD. To learn how this is done, you can purchase my cartooning DVD at PhotoshopCAFE.

Posted on January 11, 2014January 13, 2014 by Patrick LaMontagne

iPad Painting with the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus

As anyone who creates digital art for a living will tell you, it’s difficult to do without a Wacom tablet or display. Beginning with the Graphire and the first generation Intuos tablets in the late nineties, I’ve used almost all versions and evolutions of Wacom products. Currently, the one I use on a daily basis is the Cintiq 24HD display. When I want to get out of the office, which usually just means moving to other parts of the house, I’m drawing and painting on the Cintiq 13HD.

Many people have asked me if I’ll be getting one of the new Cintiq Companion displays, but having just purchased a top of the line laptop to supplement my desktop PC, I don’t need another computer. I make my living with my artwork and have daily editorial cartoon deadlines. I can’t afford any downtime, so having another full system that I can work on if my main computer needs repair is very important to me. As I work at home and spend 90 percent of my time here, a fully functional portable Cintiq Companion would be wasted on me, so the 13HD and a laptop suits me just fine.

From time to time, however, I do enjoy the portability of drawing and painting on my iPad. I bought my first gen iPad about three months after it came out in 2010 and I used it almost every day. I began with finger painting, and then I probably spent a couple of hundred dollars in the first year, trying to find a stylus that would work well for drawing and painting. Eventually, I settled on the Wacom Bamboo Stylus and it worked very well for its intended use. Having tried many different drawing apps, I found that the ProCreate app suited my drawing style best and it’s the one I use above all others to this day.

I like to rest my hand on the screen, so I cut the thumb, index, and middle fingers from a light glove and wear that while drawing and painting on the iPad. I worked around the lack of pressure sensitivity by manually varying the opacity in the app. A similar method is to add a new layer and vary the opacity of that as well. A little awkward, but I managed to create some iPad drawings and paintings that I was pleased with, even if they took longer than they would have on my PC with a drawing tablet or display.

Recently, Wacom introduced their Intuos Creative Stylus for the iPad and I was intrigued. It connects via Bluetooth, has pressure sensitivity, programmable buttons like their other tablet and display pens, and palm rejection capability, which means you can rest your hand on the screen without your palm creating any digital pen marks. The key word here is ‘capability.’

As my first gen iPad had been proving unreliable and twitchy over the last year, I finally retired it and bought the new iPad Mini with Retina display, preferring the smaller size to the iPad Air. The Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus arrived last week and I was eager to put it through its paces.

The first thing I was impressed with is that it comes in a very nice case. With space for five spare nibs (it comes with two spares) and battery included, you feel you’ve purchased quality. My Cintiq 13HD came with a very nice case for the stylus as well and it gives me peace of mind that these portable styli are well protected while they’re being carted around.

Through trial and error and a little research, I found out some important technical info that will make your life a lot easier when using this pen.

First, the stylus takes an AAAA battery (that’s 4 As). It comes with one of them, so it’s ready to use. But I happened to be out running errands the day mine arrived so I wanted to see how hard it was to find replacements. Fortunately I found a set of two at The Source, a small franchised electronics store. A package of two batteries set me back $12. Our grocery store battery display didn’t have AAAA batteries, so you might have to look to find them. The Wacom site says a battery will last you 150 hours. I spent a few hours painting with the stylus and the battery still reads 100% in the ProCreate app, so I’ve no reason to doubt the claim.

Second, I have a wireless keyboard that connects to my iPad via Bluetooth and you connect it in the iOS settings. You can’t do that with the Intuos Creative Stylus, since it doesn’t even show up there. The stylus connects to your iPad inside of the supported apps (click here and scroll down for the list). In ProCreate for example, there’s a dropdown menu that shows a device option and sure enough, the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus is one of the choices. The connection was very stable and putting it away in the case seems to shut the pen off so it doesn’t waste the battery.

I didn’t bother to try any of the other drawing apps, so let’s just talk about ProCreate and this stylus. I haven’t done any iPad painting in a while so I was very impressed with the recent updates ProCreate has made to their app. They’ve got great blend mode options for layers, adjustments for color, sharpness, blur, multiple transformation tools and their brush engine allows for a LOT of customization. ProCreate is a very robust app and I see no reason to change my preference. It didn’t crash once while painting my funny looking rat, so it’s very stable.

I was disappointed that I couldn’t get the palm rejection to work well in ProCreate, so I ended up wearing the makeshift glove again which doesn’t really bug me. It was only later that I found out that it isn’t the stylus that doesn’t support palm rejection, it’s the app. Again, refer to the list of which features work with which apps.

The pressure sensitivity on this stylus works like a dream! With the programmable buttons, ProCreate allows you to choose which task you want each button to perform. I set one button to activate the color picker, and the other button to Undo. You don’t even need to have the pen in contact with the tablet to get these to work, either.

Bottom line, this stylus works as advertised. While the price may seem steep to some ($99.95 from Wacom), I’m a big believer that you get what you pay for and my experience with Wacom devices is that they last and work well for a long time. I’m being careful not to drop this stylus, though, as it’s still a precise electronic device.

A couple of final thoughts. It would be unreasonable to expect this stylus to perform as well as a Cintiq display. I can make quicker brush strokes, enjoy much more precise pressure sensitivity and paint with larger documents with higher resolution on my professional displays than I would expect to on the iPad. This stylus does not turn your iPad into a Cintiq Companion display. Also, keep in mind that Wacom created the stylus, not the apps with which it is used, so if there’s something that doesn’t work the way you might expect it to, it’s likely the app, not the pen.

I’m very pleased with the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus and I expect to use it often for sketching and rougher paintings. Beginning the rat painting you see at the top on the iPad was quite enjoyable and the image will eventually become a much larger, much more detailed rendering using Photoshop and my Cintiq 24HD display.

I would recommend both the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus and the ProCreate app without reservation, but as always, the tools are only as good as the artist using them. For best results with your artwork, keep learning, follow the work of other artists, and draw and paint as often as you can.

Posted on October 15, 2013October 15, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Photoshop Brush Maintenance

The other day I found myself wanted to do a little housekeeping with my Photoshop brushes, and I figured I’d share some thoughts. I won’t be teaching anything about how to create brushes in Photoshop here as I’ve already detailed all of that in both of my DVDs, an article I wrote for Photoshop User Magazine and in a webinar or two that I recorded for Wacom. Creating Photoshop brushes is an easy topic to find online and I would encourage anyone who wants to paint digitally to learn how to create and customize your own brushes.

Brush Hoarding

With an almost limitless supply of free brush sets online, digital artists of all levels seem to have a habit of downloading anything they can find on the off chance that one day; they might have use for the Valentine’s Day Zombie Cupid Brush Set.

I’ve seen artists who not only have hundreds of brush sets at the ready, most of which they’ve looked at once, but also those who have a hundred or more brushes in the set they use every day, most of those going untouched as well. Before downloading a brush set, ask yourself if you’re really going to use it.

Stamp or Paint

There are two main brush types that I’ve come across and both have their uses. The first are stamp brushes. Usually it’s the type of brush that is meant to be tapped onto an image just like a stamp. For my editorial cartoon work, my signature is a stamp brush. As I want my brand to be consistent, it is comprised of my editorial cartoon signature (different than my actual signature), and my website address. On every cartoon I’ve done for the last few years, my signature looks exactly the same because of this stamp brush and it’s the only stamp brush I use consistently.

Paint brushes on the other hand are ones intended to be used with a brush stroke. With a little imagination and experimentation, a well-crafted stamp can be turned into a versatile and powerful paint brush.

Brush Sets

Some of the free downloads out there are really great. You can find specific sets for holidays, environments, themes, moods, and weather. I’ve spent many hours exploring brush sets over the years. As time went on, however, I found that less is more and I pretty much stick to one brush set, most of which I designed myself.

Here’s the set I started with and what it looked like after I was done editing. Some were even duplicates, although I don’t know how I managed that. Some look like duplicates but because of different settings, the brush stroke is very different, even if the stamp doesn’t reveal that. To clean them up, I just went through them one by one and asked myself how often I really used a brush. If the answer was ‘almost never’ then I deleted it.

I still have and use other brush sets from time to time. For example, I have a brush set that is just snowflakes, another that is just leaves, and yet another that is just lightning stamps. But I use them very rarely, so while those brushes are not part of my main set, they’re still worth keeping. What you see here, however are the brushes I rely on every day.

Grouping Brushes

Because I like to keep my tool and brush palettes clean and out of the way, I don’t worry too much about naming my brushes because I only view them as small thumbnails. I do, however, like to have them grouped so that I don’t have to test a brush each time I grab it to make sure it’s what I want. If they’re grouped together, I have a good idea what any brush is going to do when I choose it. Here’s how mine are grouped.

Why I Don’t Share Brushes

I’ve been asked innumerable times to provide my brush set for people and the answer is always No. It’s not that I have any magic brushes; it’s just that you will learn a lot more by creating your own than by using ones other artists have created. The main brush I use for painting, however, is one you already have if you use Photoshop. It’s a default and is my favorite painting brush, the one you see in the next image. In articles and videos, I’ve also shown how to make my hair brushes, but don’t be fooled. Having the tools is completely different than knowing how to use the tools. You only get that from experience and you only get experience by painting.

Experimentation and Discovery

While this panel may look complicated, it’s not. The best way to find out how everything works is to experiment with the different settings and paint on a blank page while doing it. I actually use much less than half of the options available to me in this panel because the way I paint doesn’t require all of the bells and whistles. My brushes are pretty simple.

Cleaning up this brush set took well over two hours because I kept experimenting with ways to make each brush better and I enjoyed playing around with the possibilities.

One brush, however, kept crashing Photoshop, and I have no idea why. Every time I tried to work with it, Photoshop CC died on me. The first time it happened, I lost about 20 minutes work because I hadn’t saved the new brush set. Happened three times before I realized it was the brush itself, and I ended up deleting it entirely and avoided any further crashes. It takes very little time to save the set after each brush change. Get in the habit of doing that when you’re working with brushes. Save the brush, save the set.

Final Note

There are so many ways to paint digitally. Some artists seek to emulate traditional media and do so with great skill. Others paint in ways that traditional artists would find completely confusing. Everybody has their own way of doing it and designing your own brushes can often spark ideas for paintings and images that you might not have considered had you simply downloaded somebody else’s tools.

Less is more, so if you have 100 brushes in your main brush set, see if you can’t whittle that down to 50. Keep the old set on your computer and save to a new set so you can always go back and retrieve any you wish you’d kept. Create new brushes, make changes to old ones, keep them organized and never be afraid to improve on the old standbys and eventually you’ll wind up with a brush set that is uniquely yours.

Posted on October 3, 2013October 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Weighing Which Wacom

Sometimes having too many choices is just as bad as having too few, especially when it comes to technology. What works for one person may not work for somebody else.

While I’m primarily a PC user, one piece of Apple tech that I really enjoy is my iPad, a first-gen device I bought in the summer of 2010 that I’m still using today. With each new iOS, it gets a little twitchier and temperamental, but I have definitely got my money’s worth from it.

I’ve also been using Wacom devices for well over a decade now, from the early first generation Intuos and Graphire tablets to the Cintiq 24HD display that I use today, and I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do without one.

One of those fortunate souls who works at home every day, I have a dedicated office and spend the majority of my time at my desk, drawing and painting on my Cintiq 24HD, a display I’m very happy with. Everything I need to be productive on a daily basis is in my office. In the evenings, however, I like to sketch the next day’s cartoons or other images with pencil on paper while relaxing on the couch in front of the TV. Sometimes I’ll do rough paintings and sketches on my iPad as well.

But lately, I’ve wanted to paint more detailed work or move on to the digital ink and paint stage of a cartoon without having to go upstairs to sequester myself in the office that I’ve already been in all day.

The newer Cintiq 13HD has abandoned the power brick of the previous 12wx, and while you still have to plug it in and connect it to a laptop, it has the resolution and screen space I want, and the ability to just prop it up on my knees to paint. So I figured this would be my next portable device.

But then, Wacom recently announced the Cintiq Companion and Cintiq Companion Hybrid Devices. The first is a stand-alone 13” Cintiq with all of the functionality and power of a laptop. The Hybrid device works as a fully functional Cintiq 13HD when it’s plugged into a desktop or laptop, but becomes a portable Android device when it’s unplugged.

Decisions, decisions.

First Option: Having just bought a very powerful laptop I eliminated the Windows 8 Companion quite quickly. I like to write, which is one of the reasons I wanted the laptop, rather than a portable device with a peripheral keyboard. The Cintiq Companion Hybrid, however, would allow me to work on the couch and also give me an untethered portable device to take with me on the go.

Second Option: Provided Apple doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel with the pending iPad 5, I could pair that with the standard Cintiq 13HD. This would give me the portability I want for painting outside my office while still tethered to a laptop, plus allow me to keep using the iPad, which has many apps I rely on. Wacom’s new Intuos Creative Stylus for the iPad (not first-gen) allows pressure sensitivity and palm rejection in some of the apps I already use for iPad painting, which means you can rest your hand on the screen and it won’t be confused with a pen stroke. Currently, I have to wear a fingerless glove when I paint on the iPad to prevent that problem.

Break it down, now.

Portability: The Companion and Companion Hybrid are being marketed that you can take them anywhere. While I do enjoy working in a coffee shop once in a while and have to travel on rare occasions, most of my portable sketching is done with a pencil and sketchbook, especially since I’m usually out in the woods or in a creek canyon somewhere while I’m doing it. The thought of taking a digital device with me to these wild places is unappealing. Worrying about charged batteries, dirt and moisture on an expensive device, not to mention that I don’t want to be connected when I’m out in nature, is unappealing to me, which is why I even turn my phone off. Whether it’s on a hike, camping, or out at a buddy’s cabin, I still prefer to draw in a traditional sketchbook.

When I do want a portable digital device, I already know that an iPad works very well for me and the Hybrid is too big to be a suitable replacement. With the new Creative Stylus, painting/sketching on the iPad when I’m in a coffee shop or other urban setting will do the trick nicely.

If I lived in a city, had to commute, was constantly out and about and in need of all of the full tools I enjoy on my desktop, an argument could be made for the Cintiq Companion or Hybrid, and I’m sure it will appeal to folks who find themselves in that daily environment. Living in the mountains, working at home, and wanting to be away from electronics when I’m out in the woods, however, I wouldn’t use this device to its full potential.

Cost: A lot of people are complaining about the cost of these new Wacom devices, but when you own the market, are leading the way in the technology and have put the R&D into creating the tech that every digital creative wants, to give it away is just bad business. Supply and demand is as old as the hills.

That being said, budget is a factor. Living in Canada, I have to buy from a reseller since only U.S. residents can buy from the Wacom site. Despite the U.S. and Canadian dollars being at or near equal the last few years, Canadian prices are significantly higher than in the U.S., an angry reality that Canadians live with on clothing, books, technology, cars, and many other products.

The best price I can find on a Companion Hybrid in Canada is $1749. That’s more than I just paid for my laptop. The price on the Cintiq 13HD is $1089.00.

All weighed and measured, I think I’m going to go with the Cintiq 13HD and a new iPad with the Intuos Creative Stylus. The cost of all three of those, estimating for the iPad 5 of course, would work out to around $1900.00 and would give me the all-around best solution to fit all of my creative portable needs for a few years to come.

It’s important to understand that the reason I’m explaining all of this is not to tell you what you should buy. It’s to illustrate the point that we all have individual needs and wants when it comes to technology. Rather than buy every new phone, TV, tablet, computer or other piece of tech that comes out simply because it’s new, take a step back and ask yourself if what you want is really what you need. Make a list of what you want to be able to do and buy the devices that fit you best. Take the time to tailor your tech to your needs and you’ll be a lot happier in your work.

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Another iPad Painting

Went for a hike up to Grassi Lakes here in Canmore yesterday afternoon. Named for noted local, Lawrence Grassi, it’s not a long trail, but if you take the ‘difficult’ route, it’s quite steep in places and is very pretty. There are a number of relatively short hikes I take in this area when I just want to get my daily exercise, each about an hour or two in duration. Cougar Creek I can walk to from my house, but if I have to pull the car out of the garage anyway to get groceries or run errands, I’ll head to Grotto Canyon or Grassi Lakes for a change of pace.

During the summer months, Grassi Lakes is usually quite busy. Even in the fall on weekends, you’ll find plenty of people walking this moderate hike, especially since the ‘easy’ route, which is essentially just a dirt road, makes the trail accessible to most people, regardless of their physical fitness. Yesterday, being a Monday, I almost had the place to myself and it was very peaceful, both on the trail and at the lakes themselves, which are really two connected ponds. The emerald colour of the water is very pretty and it’s a nice little spot.

I’ve noticed this tree stump at the lakes on a number of occasions. For locals, look up on your left, just after you cross the little footbridge between the lakes. More than once, I’ve sketched it, but yesterday I figured I’d like to paint it. Since I haven’t done much paint sketching in the last little while and didn’t want to make a finished piece out of it, I painted this on the iPad while watching TV last night. It sort of turned into a two-colour image and I quite like the finished result.

Painting on the iPad is a real challenge because of the low resolution (especially on my first-gen device) and the imprecise nature of the stylus. By varying the opacity of the brushes and layers in the procreate app, I manage to simulate pressure sensitivity and have developed a method that works quite well for me. Actual size of this image is 704 pixels X 960 pixels at 72ppi, so it would make a poor print, but it’s good practice.

Posted on May 7, 2013May 7, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Mighty? Maybe not.

With the Adobe Max conference going on in L.A. this week, there are many in the design, photography and other digital creative industries that are actively talking about all things Adobe. Most of the talk is surrounding the Creative Cloud and the subscription model. In fact, I’ve seen and participated in some heated discussions the past 24 hours about the pros and cons. Most of these arguments look very much like online political bickering, complete with name-calling, passive aggressive rants and the usual ‘my way or the highway’ arguments that are the staple of social media discussions. Having expressed my opinion already, I don’t feel the need to repeat it all here. Bottom line is that anybody who uses any of Adobe’s software will have to subscribe to the new model or eventually watch their tools become obsolete. Time marches on, adapt and overcome, deal with it. The corporate mind is made up and unlikely to change. We’ll just have to agree to disagree and move on, since we should all probably be working anyway.

One of yesterday’s announcements that caught my eye was Adobe’s introduction of Project Mighty. A pressure sensitive pen for the iPad and iPhone, connected to the cloud, allowing people to draw and take notes on the iPad. Before I talk about my impression, here’s a video that explains it, just so we’re all on the same page.

At first glance, this looks like it might be something very innovative. In fact, I’ve had a number of people send me email and private messages since this was announced telling me I must be excited about this and asking what I think of it. The only reason I assume they’re asking is that my medium for the majority of my work is digital and that I’ve also done a fair bit of iPad art over the past couple of years. So having only seen the same video you just watched, my first impression is that the Mighty doesn’t strike me as memorable, at least not in this first edition.

I’ve tried a number of iPad pens over the last year. Some of them have a plastic disc that rests on the screen, many have rubber eraser type nibs in varying sizes, and even one expensive disaster purported to be pressure sensitive, but ended up just being a waste of $80.00. The battery didn’t last and it relied on raising and lowering the volume of the device since it communicated through the iPad’s microphone. To quote Mr. Scott in Star Trek, “The more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”

In my experience with art on the iPad, the strength lies in a well developed app, because the hardware is a compromise. The iPad just wasn’t designed to use a pen and Apple has consistently showed no interest in answering the scores of artists who have been begging for one. As Steve Jobs famously said, “It’s like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it.”

But with a good third party stylus and a well written app, you can still draw and paint well enough on the iPad. The best apps that I’ve used to date are procreate, artstudio, and Sketchbook Pro. I’ve been able to work around the pressure sensitivity quite well in all of these apps simply by varying the brush opacity while I paint. Coupled with a good stylus, I find painting on the iPad to be quite enjoyable, despite having to wear a light glove so I can rest my hand on the screen while I draw. The pen I settled on after trying many of them, is the Wacom Bamboo Stylus and it works quite well, despite the limitations of the iPad itself. The paintings you see here were done on the first generation iPad with the Wacom stylus.

What surprised me most about Project Mighty is that it doesn’t appear to involve Wacom at all. I’ve been using Wacom tablets and displays since the 90’s and while each new evolution is better than the last, the one consistent thing I could always count on was that there was no better name in pen and tablet tech than Wacom. I would defy any digital creative artist to challenge that statement. The industry standard for pen technology has long been Wacom and if this pen was a cooperative venture between the two, I would have expected Adobe to lead with it, so I can only assume that this was an independent creation. It was my understanding that the two companies had a symbiotic relationship as most Adobe users I know are using Wacom tablets or displays in their work. Wacom’s lack of involvement in Project Mighty (unless it’s some deep dark secret) is perplexing.

One of the biggest complaints I hear when reviewing any stylus or app for the iPad is that people want it to work like their Wacom tablet. Same features, sensitivity, and functionality. Unrealistically, many artists want the power of a robust computer mixed with a Cintiq 24HD that is light and allows them to take it anywhere. Someday, I’m sure, but I still think that perfect device is a long way off. Then again, we might see a hint of that soon.

On February 28th, this status update on Wacom’s Facebook page created quite a ripple through the digital creative world. “We’ve heard you shouting out loud for a Wacom mobile tablet for creative uses. Well… we’re listening. We’ve read your email and spoken to many about an on-the-go dream device. It will come. This summer. We’re working 24/7 on it. And yes, it has a real pressure-sensitive professional pen, smooth multi-touch, an HD display, and other valuable features that you haven’t seen in other tablets.”

With this tease still resonating, I won’t be buying into Project Mighty. When it comes to digital pen technology, I’m willing to be patient and wait for whatever Wacom has up their sleeve. We might finally see tablet hardware that doesn’t ask artists to compromise. If Wacom’s previous track record for stealing the show is any indication, I expect many artists will consider everything that has come before it to be just an opening act.

Posted on March 26, 2013March 27, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

Wacom Cintiq 13HD

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of attending an online briefing for the new Wacom Cintiq 13HD Pen Display. For those familiar with the Wacom line of tablets and displays, the 13HD is the replacement for the Wacom Cintiq 12WX. Let me tell you, this might just be the one you’ve been waiting for.

Let me preface this post by saying, if you’re expecting an unbiased critical ‘pros and cons’ review, you’re not going to find it here. I’m a big fan of Wacom tablets for the simple reason that I make my living as a digital artist. The computer is my medium, but only if a Wacom tablet or display is connected. I would not be able to sketch, draw or paint with a mouse, and I’ve yet to meet a professional digital painter who is not using a Wacom device at some level.

Over the past ten years, I’ve used all versions of the professional Intuos line of tablets, a few of the entry level Bamboo tablets, the Cintiq 12wx, and my current go-to display is the Cintiq 24HD. Each has had unique features that distinguishes itself from the others and from the previous models. For my daily work, I’m using the Cintiq 24HD. It’s a joy to create with, and it excels in quality and performance. Combine that with the fact that I can customize all of the features and I find it does everything I need it to. Well, except for one thing. It’s a monster and you can’t take it with you! With the Cintiq 24HD, you find a place for it and you leave it there. Since I work from home in my office at my desk everyday, it’s all I need most of the time.

But from time to time, I like to do painting demos in galleries, instructional presentations, or give lectures at schools. The Intuos5 tablet works very well for that and I can still do all of my work with that tablet without a problem. But let’s face it, I’m not only used to working on the screen now, but I really enjoy it. The Cintiq 13HD paired with a laptop will now give me the portability and performance I need, not to mention the HD quality I’ve become used to and thrive on.

So in the briefing today, there were a few things that really caught my eye, features that made me sit up and take notice. Or should that be, sit up and beg?

They’ve gotten rid of the connector box that came with the 12WX. That box meant that every time you wanted to hook it up, you had to deal with plugging and unplugging what seemed like more cables than were really there. To be honest, it was a pain to cart around and I didn’t like that very much. Of course, the Cintiq 13HD still has cables, but they’re a lot neater. In fact, it’s a 3-in-1 cable. It also comes with an AC adapter to plug into the wall, as it’s unrealistic to expect a state of the art HD display to run on the power from a USB cable. For those who want the VGA connector, you can easily find adapters at most electronics stores.

Obviously, Wacom has tried to find the balance between portable and performance with this device, because the Pro Pen that comes with the Cintiq 13HD also comes with a handy carrying case, complete with the interchangeable nibs and other accessories that Wacom pen users have come to expect and appreciate. One of the best features with the pen is that it is compatible with the Intuos 5 tablets and other Cintiq displays so you don’t have to keep switching pens if you’re using multiple Wacom devices. I love that! One pen to rule them all.

The display stand is ingenious. With three different settings to allow you to adjust the height and angle, there will be a workable position for anyone. But if you’re the type of artist that likes to work with it on your lap or flat on the table or desk, the entire stand is removable, leaving you with just the display. Incidentally, the whole thing is less than 3 pounds!

One of the greatest features with any Wacom tablet or display is the ability to customize the Express Keys, Touch Ring and Radial Menu. With the Cintiq 13HD, they’ve replaced the Touch Ring with a Rocker Ring, which now gives you four more programmable buttons. As someone who usually has a hard time deciding which features win the coveted Express Key status, I’m pleased they gave me more options to choose from. The ability to make my tablet or display my own is a very important feature for me and I use these features in every image I work on.

Until I get my hands on one of these little wonders, I’ll just have to drool from afar, but it has definitely made this year’s technology wish list and I’m looking forward to getting one. The Wacom Cintiq 13HD will be shipping very soon, sometime in the middle of April.

Posted on January 20, 2013February 3, 2013 by Patrick LaMontagne

A couple of hours at the zoo

This past Thursday found me in Calgary, running a few errands that had been piling up. Had to exchange a faulty hard drive, buy some office supplies, and meet with the Retail Manager at the Calgary Zoo. I’ve had Totem prints in their store for a little while now, and we’re still learning what works and finding new ways to promote the work. I also wanted to show her the shirt samples I received recently, as the zoo sells The Mountain tees already. So while I did get a cartoon out that morning before I left, it was largely an out-of-office day. I had been trying to get into the city for about a week, but the roads and weather kept putting the kibosh on that. Calgary is only about an hour drive from Canmore, but Hwy 1 can get slick and the main city routes are even more treacherous in bad weather, especially considering that many Alberta drivers are notoriously aggressive. My rule of thumb has always been, if the weather is bad and I don’t have to be on the road, don’t bother. It only takes one wing-nut in a hurry to ruin your whole week.

Turns out that the repeated delays benefited me a great deal. When I finally did get into the city, the weather was downright warm for winter, thanks to Chinook winds, and a day running errands turned into a great outing. Considering I was at the zoo already and have an annual membership, I brought my camera to see if I could get some reference photos. I’ve said many times that I’m not a good photographer, largely because I have no interest in putting in the work required to become one. I take snapshots. On recent trips to the zoo, I had a borrowed zoom lens and tripod for our camera, an older Nikon D-60, which is basically just a higher end point-and-shoot, or at least it is the way I use it. With the zoom lens, I just couldn’t take a decent shot to save my life, so this time I left it at home. Setting the camera on automatic, I figured I’d wing it and take what I could get.

The strategy worked well. The Calgary Zoo is very popular and is often quite busy. Their newest exhibit, the Penguin Plunge that opened last year, can often have very long lineups in the summer months. When you do get in, you only have a limited time to spend, as others are waiting. It’s a great enclosure, designed so that you’re so close it would be simple to reach out and touch a penguin as it swims by, the water’s surface at chest level. Of course, there are attendants on hand to ensure people don’t touch them, but it’s great to have that proximity.

On Thursday, the zoo was so quiet, that after my meeting, I just walked into the Penguin Plunge, and spent almost a half hour in there just snapping photos. The penguins were active, talkative and a lot of fun to watch. At any one time, there were only about 10 people in the enclosure. Must have taken a hundred or more photos, and about 10 of those ended up being great for painting reference. While I’ve already painted a Rockhopper Totem, I’ll be painting a Gentoo at some point as well. That’s the species in the above image.

Once I got to this little meerkat, she seemed to have no issues with me taking photos of her. Turning her head this way and that, only about three or four feet away, she stood tall, crouched down, gave me almost every angle I could want. A gentleman standing near me actually said, “She’s posing for you!” It certainly seemed that way.

And finally, while I was hoping for some photos of the red pandas, just before I reached their enclosure, a woman deliberately changed her direction, walked over to me and said, “They just fed the tigers. They’re all right there if you want to get some pictures.”

I thanked her (it really was a nice gesture on her part) and walked over to their nearby enclosure. Sure enough, the mother and her three cubs, who aren’t small anymore, were lying down together eating whole raw chickens. A real treat to see as one cub snarled at another for getting too close to his meal, the mother grooming one of the other cubs, just getting to see them so close and active on a such a nice day, with very few people around. Even through glass, the shots turned out quite well.

While I`d thought I’d taken 500 photos, turns out it was around 400 as there were already a bunch on the card. The wonders of digital cameras, taking as many shots as you like without incurring any expense. Once I got home, I just opened up the card in Adobe Bridge and started deleting everything with bad focus, light, composition and within 10 minutes, I had about 20 photos that will serve me well for future painting reference. I had a very enjoyable day, one of the best I’ve had at the zoo. Not bad for an errand day in the city.