When I received my Intuos5 in 2012, I expected it to turn me into a drawing grand master with all the cool extra functions it had.
I was a bit disappointed to find out that it drew exactly like my old Bamboo, except the pen was nicer to hold. Since then, I’ve tried not to throw more money at Wacom
than I absolutely have to.
I’m currently using a medium Wacom ONE, which is Wacom’s cheapest tablet. The pressure sensitivity is great, and it draws
perfectly well. However, it’s less comfortable to use compared to my
previous Wacom tablets. Since I do use the tablet for hours every day I decided
to do a bit of DIY!
1)
Changing the nib
The Wacom tablet pen comes with the default
plastic nib which works but I like the other nibs better.
I found that the white-tipped flex nibs are
nice for smooth, worn out tablet surfaces. I used them a lot last year when I did
digital painting.
Nowadays, I spend a lot of time sketching and
doing detailed lineart on the computer. I find the grey felt tips more suited for
this task, for they provide a more pencil-like texture.
The nibs used to be marketed as only compatible with
professional range tablets. Honestly, though, they work with any cheap Wacom
tablet! I’ve tried these nibs on my old Bamboo Pen and Intuos Draw and they fit
just fine.
2)
Protecting the surface with Bristol Board
Ever since I started working on my comic in
2015, I spend around 3 hours using my tablet every day. I managed to create a
smooth shiny bald patch on this tablet in a month.
I couldn’t find any good surface protectors
on the internet so I experimented with different types of papers.
So far, my favourite is the Bristol Board.
It has an extremely fine paper texture that comes pretty close to the original
surface texture of the tablet.
teakepp 