Thursday, May 25, 2006

I'll never reach nirvana this way

I think that the consensus, among levitating gurus & co., is that you need to trascend all earthly desires in order to achieve cosmic peace and nirvana. So far I've coped with earthly desires by trying to buy stuff that I coveted as soon as possible - since it's generally nerdy stuff like books and new computer games that's not a big deal - but now I'm in trouble. I've seen a Wacom Cintiq UX21 graphic tablet, I've TOUCHED IT, and SKETCHED ON IT, and I'm in love. It's also very, very expensive.

I went to the Adobe Live expo yesterday to get information about software that I may use for work (my day work, rather than the comic) - and since I was going to wear a badge and didn't want to disgrace my company with shabby looks I made a huge effort and wore a girly shirt and extremely fake pearls. When I got there I discovered that it was a show aimed at creative industry workers, though, who were all hippy-looking people eyeing with some suspicion my pseudo-semi-corporate look. After playing City Life with the social classes that set each other on fire I was vaguely uneasy. Maybe I should have shouted, WAIT! I'M NOT A SUIT! I'M LIKE YOU! I'M LIKE YOUUUUUUU... AAAARGH!

Anyway there was a Wacom stand, and I got to try the Cintiq. Imagine a 21'' monitor at 1600x1200 resolution that you can lie flat and draw on. At the moment I have to zoom in even 6x to get my lines not to look too shaky, so that often when I zoom out again I discovered that I drew, say, the legs of the character twice as large as they should have been, because I couldn't see the whole figure. On this tablet, I wouldn't have this problem at all. I can get a firm line even at 1:1 resolution. It's really like drawing on paper. BOHOOOOO. I DESIRE IT SO MUCH. I've been telling myself that since I spend at least 20 hours a week drawing in Photoshop, it would make perfect sense to spend my savings and then some on this thing, but then I do a reality check and realise that I'm just being crazy.

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