I bought the Cintiq 12WX and I have to say using it is great but it took me some time to get it set up to work right.
When connected to my new iMac I have to set the position in relation to the main screen and the position of the Mac title bar just right. For me it works best with the extra display of the Cintiq to be above the main screen and with the title bar set in the Cintiq. That leaves the dock in the main screen. This is good because the dock gets in the way of the drawing on the smaller screen if set into the Cintiq.
The other set up to be done was the calibration, which involves pointing to 2 hairline crosses, top left and bottom right of the screen. That took a while to get the point positioned right relative to the pointer. You don’t want it under the pointer so that you can’t see it when you are drawing. It is better slightly up and slightly to the left (if you are right handed)
Drawing with the CIntiq is pure joy, which is just as well considering the price of the item. It isn’t exactly the same as drawing on paper but pretty close. Maybe the tiniest of lags from pointer to paint movement.
Screen size it something that bothered me at first. I bought an iMac with the big 24in screen and now I am working on a 12in with a smaller resolution ?? It’s Ok when you get used to it though. I did try mirroring the displays but that left me with the lower resolution on the iMAc and that was terrible. I wonder what is the resolution on the 21in Cintiq, if it matches the resolution on the iMac I will consider the 21in next year, for a while I considered sending back the 12 n and getting the 21in now but, was wise enough to give the 12 in some time for me to get used to.
Unfortunately I only had the Cintiq a few hours before having to go away for a few days but as soon as I got back I got playing with it. I spent a day working with ArtRage doing some drawing on the tablet and was pleased with the results and then the next day I worked in Illustrator to make a repeating pattern design to upload to my microstock sites. You can see which Micro Stock Sites I use at Spondicious Photography and Illustration Web site.
I will post up a couple of drawings when I get around to it….
I am planning to make a new design each day to build up the portfolios in the Microstock sites because I have been doing well selling the illustrations, better than with the photo sales. Dreamstime has been a good one for the illustrations but not as successful as Fotolia
Just seen that the repeating tile pattern I uploaded to BigStockPhoto has been added to my portfolio there and the wait for the image to get on to Dreamstime is around 120 hours.
Users group for CIntiq owners and wannabees on Bebo
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