Query:
With my new PC set to be ready in the next couple of weeks, I am looking to move my crafty art in a new direction. I am going digital to sell online. I know there is the whole no way to copyright etc…issue but I feel I need to give this a try. I can always stop.
The question is, which drawing tablet to use. I have not yet started looking seriously. It is a must, that it be a tablet with a screen. The whole drawing on a blank slab does not work for me.
My brother has landed on on iPad using Procreate and he is very happy with it.
Remembering that it will be crafty art, along the lines of my mushroom paintings that I will be doing.
Open to suggestions and ideas.
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That is not quite accurate. You hold the copyright for your work by default, without doing anything. It is difficult to enforce copyright if you don’t have a team of lawyers on call, that’s more the issue. However, the effect of this is fairly limited. You can’t do much against black market distribution. However, most official and prominent sites publishing art do take copyright claims seriously, and their communities mostly take a very dim view on it, so it is unlikely that your work will be distributed over any channels that actually reach a large audience.
From what friends in the business tell me, that’s not that much of a problem anyways. What digital artists make their actual money with is commissions, and you don’t care much if those get pirated. You got payed to make it, after that… 
No suggestions on the tablet, unfortunately. I’m using a wacom bamboo for the few times I actually do something, and find it perfectly sufficient for that (the moment I can actually draw a straight line I might rethink that, but right now I can definitely not blame the equipment for my shortcomings), but that’s clearly not what you’re looking for.
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Thanks for that info. I ordered one recommended by my brother. Only 1080 res, which he said I really am going to want more but, this one has a nice lamenate surface and a big coupon at checkout. Now I am worried about my RAM for my new PC. Not arriving til Sept 11…which means I will have to set up on my old pc then set up again or wait…which I am not good at.
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Have not looked in to the drawing tablet world in about 18 years, I bought a Wacom back then and it still works great today. This was before touch screen technology was in phones and where its at today, so maybe Wacom are old hat and theres some new kid on the block with some new methods.
Drawing on a tablet that was also a screen display wasn’t even a thing then, they came out a few years later for like 10,000 or something mad my college ass couldn’t afford.
The Wacom Bamboo jedidia mentioned is the modern version of the Wacom I had I believe, or at least similar in its purpose, small entry level drawing pad.
As for drawing a straight line, depends on the software you are using but you can adjust brush properties and stroke properties, that will give your strokes a much smoother and natural curve or line (a lot of the line wobble is sensor/hardware related so you usually need to adjust for that within the software). I try to strike a balance of 75-80% my natural stroke with 25-20% software end smoothing and my left hand placed lightly over Ctrl+Z until I got the intended effect.
Havent done any digital drawing in a decade though so saying wacom and photoshop might not be what the kids are seeking out.
Learning to work in vectors or convert your work to vectors (e.g adobe illustrator) is also great when bringing your art from the digital realm back in to the physical. You are no longer working with pixels, you are working with mathematical equations, so you could blow your art piece up to be the size of a building, and it will retain it’s fidelity.
My last job we had a 3d printer, a vinyl cutter and a die cutter, using vector based art was essential for those since they’re cutting real lines and curves with physical length, and not an image that is x pixels by x pixels.
I know you are looking for something where you can see what yr drawing, assuming the wacom bamboo doesnt have a touch screen it might not be what you’re looking for but it doesnt take long to get used to looking at the screen and not looking at what your hand is doing, your mind eventually gets used to it, even sooner if you’re a heavy mouse user (I assume we are all heavy mouse users here on the interweb forums XD ).
I find drawing on screens harder now because my big hand is in the way where my brain is used to no hand being present during digital drawing XD
While on the subject, have you ever sculpted in VR w/ motion controls? It is an absolute experience. It’s weird and awkward and sometimes I felt like I was contorting myself as I lost my place in earthrealm, but I was never able to sculpt anything good in 3d software with a mouse in the past, in seconds I was able to make a nice goofy lookin bust of a person. It made a lot more sense to me sculpting that way than using a mouse or drawing pen. Definitely give it a go once if given the opportunity.
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You misunderstand. Wobble is the least of my problems. The difficult part for me is to just make the line go where I want it to go! 
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Which is why a mouse and the pen tool/anchor points are my favourite things <3
Because I spend way too long photoshopping my friends into scenarios.
Or sometimes just try to convince them that I’ve eloped with their cat to live a not-so-puritan lifestyle.
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All of this is why I must have a screened tablet. I tried a wacom no screen tablet and realized it would require a complete rewire of my hand eye coordination. Not gonna happen. 
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I guess in that specific case it helps to have no hand-eye coordination to begin with…
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Sounds like you are on a great new adventure. Good luck with it! 
I have a Wacom monitor an stylus. I have it on an arm so it can be put aside when not in use, but when using it it can be tilted to the perfect drawing angle. It is a joy to use.
However my eyesight is preventing me from working digitally. The last thing I made was a comic book of an entirely fictitious first meeting between James and Eric. But that was last year.
I now use it as a second monitor, but I’m thinking I probably won’t use it as Cintiq again. 
So I will be selling it soon. I have a regular monitor I can replace it with.
I have also been quite under the weather lately, in a lot of pain. so no Studio work for awhile, though I am still making interesting watercolour sketches sitting in my comfy chair. I will post some soon ™.
I just wanted to mention that it might be worth considering getting a good colour scanner and making you paintings analog as usual but then scanning them for digital upload. I have a Canon scanner that has an 11x14" platen and quite a range of resolutions.
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Thanks! I will keep that in mind.
Hope you feel better soon 
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So the next part of my journey is set to begin. I was so excited to share my progress with @TravelEcho . But now, that will not happen. I am determined to push forward because it is what she would want. Without her input, it just won’t be the same.
I miss you Travel Echo. The colors are not quite as vibrant without you.
Here is my new canvas. I will try to make you proud.
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I have long embraced the philosophical approach known as Wabi Sabi even before I knew it was even a thing.
Basically this Japanese term means something along the lines of ‘appreciation of that which is unfinished, broken, worn down or naturally rustic’. (It is much more than just that so it’s something to read up on if interested).
Anyway, I love old, somewhat shabby things.
Think weathered paint, rust stains & kludge repairs.
Things that show the passage of time & the impermanence of all things. There are some great montage videos on YouTube with some lovely examples.
Anyway…
While travelling & recreationally hunting for fossils & other naturally occurring intrigues, I came across some long forgotten wreckage that really encompasses, age, rust & impermanence.
It seems fitting that I had made a special return trip with my camera with intention of sharing my find here before I knew our dear @TravelEcho had passed.
Everything we know, was once dust among the stars & so it will one day return.
Out on a dry & salty mudflat, in an area where the coastline is receding, I found the fragments of a long discarded vehicle.
With the protection of the salty water gone, the bones of this ancient machine have been oxidising away to the point that nothing remains but rectangular lumps of rust scattered in the dry crust of mud & algea.
Slightly away, among the hardy succulent groundcovers was the remains of the differential. (The big chunky gears that drove the wheel shafts).
Much like a delicate fossil, it would have crumbled if I’d tried to move it, yet I could make out the structure & the destinctive teeth of the gearing.
This is the only part that still can be identified & soon this too will be gone.
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I love this kind of stuff too. But I would have been left wondering what I was looking at. 
The plants growing around it are quite interesting as well. For me, the appeal is the decomposing man-made against the thriving natural growth. Nature always wins.
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She would have been so excited for this. I would love to see anything you might want to share from this new stage of your creative journey.
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Well if it’s anything like the Armillaria ostoyae specimen in Oregon, that could be just a small part of a much bigger organism 
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Confetti Tree has been planted near my gold pheasants under the arching branches of a gold wall sculpture from the 70’s.
Thank you @TravelEcho
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