Graphics Tablet Advice Needed

Dilbert75

Hi all,

Hope this is the right forum for this question.

My son will be 11 in about a week and a half. He is and always has been mad about art and he writes his own comics, invents his own characters, creates his own "worlds", makes up board games, etc - on paper. He's often written them out in Word on the PC but trying to put in his illustrations has been difficult - after scanning in a few, the file size gets too large to handle (poss wrong settings but kinda beside the point).

What I'm thinking he might like is a graphics tablet, which, as I understand it, I could plug into the PC and let him do his sketches directly into Word. As such, the memory required would only be for the lines in the drawing, not the whole space consumed by the area of the illustration. Should hopefully be less cumbersome to do, as he'd be able to edit drawings electronically rather than having to do them again, scan them again and re-insert them.

Is that feasible?

Next question is around a recommendation for a reasonably cheap tablet for this purpose. I'm talking somewhere in the €50 bracket, if that's possible. Its not going to be used 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, or on commercial projects, so ultimate high quality is not the requirement. It'd be nice to get one with a battery-free pen though, as I can see a regular complaint there with the battery having worn out / pen been left on / battery being robbed to put in something else.

Any opinions?

PS Computer spec is P3 933Mhz, 384 MB Ram, 128Mb Graphics. Also, are the pens ambidextrous? He's a left-hander, as many arty people are!

Dilbert75

Anyone????

Oriel

A graphic tablet is simply a replacement for a mouse to enable a natural input format. The image sizes and white space would remain the same.
To be honest, you're not going to get a very good one for €50 either, but i'm sure he's not going to be looking professional quality or anything

Dilbert75

So would it allow him draw hand drawings into Word? If so, its what I want. And, given that he's only going on 11 and its a hobby, you're bang on about the quality requirements. It only has to work and be reasonably good to fulfill the purpose.

Oriel

Aye, that's true. Get the second opinion of somebody else here before buying anything though!

Dilbert75

Well that was kinda the rationale behind posting here - but I've only got one respondent! Thanks for your help anyway.

Anyone else have any opinions about low-end graphics tablets for the application listed above? Something like http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=MMEB100242&productID=66105

christophicus

Do you have to have the drawings going into word?? Im sure there is software that would come with the tablet that would be alot easier to use then using word.

Dilbert75

Possibly - but I don't really know. I'm trying to think how it would be easiest for a kid to work - drawing into one package then copying into another might be messy, especially when it would come to editing. But I don't really know what's out there, particularly in that price range.

christophicus

so you want him to be able to write txt on the pictures??

Dilbert75

Not quite: he types the text - maybe structured using tables or something - and draws in the illustration beside it.

gamer

my advice, is get an amd pc base unit,at least 2.oghz gigahertz cpu winxp, 512meg ram,agp grahics 128meg card secondhand on boards.ie, cost 300e approx, use your old monitor , kb,mouse.LOOK at computer hardware for sale forums,boards.ie, that pc you have is too slow, not enuff memory,if he wants to scan in lots of comicbook art.it would be easier to buy scanner,12inch,just scan in art, get usb scanner, it needs no power unit.theres loadsa charitys that,lll take your old pc unit.remove all personal files,emails etc.

Karoma

Dilbert75 wrote:

Also, are the pens ambidextrous? He's a left-hander, as many arty people are!

Yes.

Your hardware spec. is sufficient.

Power is provided via USB.

As pointed out earlier, it's just an input device that's shaped like a pen with one or two buttons on it. I don't know about using MS Word to achieve what he wants. It might make sense for you to create a template for the comics, set it as Read-Only and get him to open that each time in a graphics editing package (Which should be supplied with the tablet), Save As when he's done.

You should also introduce him to ArtRage (Free and wonderful for freehand drawing/messing.)

PC World have a cheap Wacom for ~€50 IIRC. I still use it from time to time. It would be sufficient for the purposes described.

Dilbert75

gamer wrote:

my advice, is get an amd pc base unit,at least 2.oghz gigahertz cpu winxp, 512meg ram,agp grahics 128meg card secondhand on boards.ie, cost 300e approx, use your old monitor , kb,mouse.LOOK at computer hardware for sale forums,boards.ie, that pc you have is too slow, not enuff memory,if he wants to scan in lots of comicbook art.it would be easier to buy scanner,12inch,just scan in art, get usb scanner, it needs no power unit.theres loadsa charitys that,lll take your old pc unit.remove all personal files,emails etc.

Thanks gamer for the opinion but I'm looking to spend around €50, not €400.

Karoma, thanks for the tip about PC World - will try that.

Thanks all for your feedback.

Kintarō Hattori

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?view=1&id=9290&type=6&sid=1417560x0

What about something like that above? Wacom are generally regarded as the best graphic tablets you can get and that is their entry range. If your going to go with a cheap one, might as well do it with one of the best names.

Paulj

i think if you're going to do any kind of drawing, don't use MS Word. Maybe use it later for putting different parts together but there's lots of other free packages available for doing interesting arty things. Remember at the end of the day Word is just a word processor.
The Gimp ... free image editing/painting package
Inkscape ... free vector graphics program

Having said that i've never used a graphics tablet so not sure how well they'll work with those packages.