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I've made all of my comics for the last three years on a 2007/2008 Bamboo Fun with a 4x6 active area and 512 pressure sensitivity. The trick for strokes that will cover a large area is to zoom out to like 25% and for detail work zoom in to like 300%

I agree though that it can be annoying. Illustrator does have some good anti-jitter tools to help with that like you said.

The easiest thing to do is set one of the pen buttons to your undo key and get used to drawing the same lines over and over. It's not like paper where you put the pen to the page and then start moving it, you need to get used to sweeping strokes.

A few tips:

1) It takes a LONG time to get used to drawing on a tablet. There's like 100 youtube tutorials you should check out that will help.

2) Zoom in as much as possible. Don't think of it like drawing on a sheet of paper, think of it like drawing on paper under a magnifying glass. Seriously zoom out to where you can see the whole page and do a rough sketch, then zoom in to like 300% and work on small areas at a time. It'll save you a lot of stress.

Like I mentioned, I'm going to try it. But the Wacom would be better IMO. The Ipad can't really run the good programs, doesn't have the sensitivity, and as far as I can tell, sketchbook pro is the only program that allows exporting of images with layers intact. So, my intention would be to draw some good clean line art and maybe import it into my computer to be re-worked.

I've used an android and iOS tablet for digital art and while it's impressive, in my opinion the technology is still a few years off from being "professional ready" with the exception of a few talented artists that have managed to squeeze some good product out of it. As you said earlier, sketchbook pro allows exporting to layers, and there's also a photoshop lite app that works fairly well for quick roughs and some finished art. It's more for digital painting (speed paints and environments) than anything else at this point though as the pressure sensitivity is still an issue.

I've got the last gen wacom pen and it's no different than any other tablet pen honestly. There IS a new pen on the market that's battery powered and has pressure sensitivity within the pen itself but it costs over $100 so it's a bit of a price hike from the $30 wacom pen.

If you're looking for a good all in one solution then going with a tablet pc is always still an option. A lot of people frown on it because it's hard to upgrade the parts when they start to get dated, but honestly that's the same problem that apple products face and they're the industry standard. A good reversible tablet notebook will cost you about $1000 on sale and you get the benefits of a cintiq (a lot of them use wacom drivers these days, so it's practically the same thing) as well as the hardware itself to run your photo editing/art software.

Yeah sadly PC gaming, even at a budget level, is always going to be a rich man's game, which is why I'm pretty set in the console world except for some indie titles that don't eat up resources. With 8 gigs of ram and what I'm assuming is an i3 processor on that model you could "maybe" switch to an ssd to run your games and notice a little bit of a speed boost, but it would be negligible, and it would still cost about $200 for a decent sized ssd.

That adapter would allow you to use external graphics, but your card selection would be limited if you wanted a card with driver support for PC and MAC (which you wouldn't, but it's still a consideration). Those things are mainly meant for video capture, audio interface, Fibre Channel, and RAID cards more than anything else.

I'd keep an eye on tiger direct and look for a good barebones system you can just plug a video card into, but yeah, even at that route you're still in the $500s

Looks way better!     

I really dig the color you've got going with the hair, but it's like you're combining 3 different hair styles to achieve "crazy" status.

First off, I'd lose the little pony tail that's hanging in the middle between the two || || strands. (I love those though, keep them, because that screams "how the hell did you get your hair to do that")

Second, the little scraggly bits on her back right shoulder need to be cleaned up, as well as the scraggly bits at the top. I'd try keeping everything straight like the two front strands and make it look like it's almost molded onto her head, personally. It's a fantastic start though and I love the body of the character.

Also a nitpick, but i'd change the color of the belt so it doesn't match the hair exactly. It makes it seem like she's got her hair wrapped around her waist.

Any kind of external graphics adapter isn't going to perform like a hard wired one will. It's still going through the thunderbolt pipeline and not connected to the board itself so there's going to be lag. Basically that's the long way of saying you can't upgrade the graphics on that machine, but in general you can't upgrade the graphics card on a mac anyway (most of the time) which is the one area where PCs tend to have the advantage.

If you upgrade to a new PC any of your PC software will transfer over fine as long as you've kept the license keys. You might have to go to the software vendor to remove your key from your existing machine in their database, but it's not too hard to do.

Adobe (and several other vendors) will NOT let you transfer your software from the mac to pc version using the same key without paying for an upgrade or transfer. (I know this because I have CS5 suite for the MAC and I can't use the key on the PC without paying for a CS6 suite upgrade)

What are you trying to do that's choking on the graphics?

I also use a Wacom Graphire 4 CTE-640.

My experiences:
1. Buy a Wacom, nothing else.
2. Don't buy a big one, A5 is enough.
3. Make sure you can remove the cover of the tablet so you can keep it clean. (I put the cover of mine in my dishwasher and it always comes out like new)
4. Buttons on the tablet usually are not really useful. Especially if you're a lefthander and use the mouse paralelly with the right.
5. Take a pen with no silicone or rubber on it. Because it robbs of with the time. I had to tape mine a lot.
6. The tablets rubber feet are pretty harmful aswell. Maybe get one with teflon feet.
7. Resolution is important but nowadays they all have pretty high resolution.

Really this is all fantastic advice. As a lefty, I agree with 4) completely! I only use the buttons on the pen itself, one for move and one for undo (alt-ctrl-z in photoshop) and I do all of my other stuff with my right hand on the mouse)

They all have at least 1024 resolution now so you're fine there. I still have a six year old Bamboo Fun (1st gen) with 512 pressure sensitivity and it works fine, you just have to zoom in a LOT. If you go with the intuos you might want to look into getting different nibs. I don't know if it's still an issue but the old Intuos used to have a problem with the nibs being a little firm and they would scratch the surface pretty hard so you'd need one of those screen protector things on the tablet. (might not be an issue anymore, but if you buy a used Intuos it will be)

If you think about upgrading down the road to a cintiq (I know it's a stretch, but they're addicting once you use one) there's an aftermarket cintiq that's just as good as the Wacom model and it only costs about $500 (USD) Aftermarket tablets in general are not as good as wacom, with the exception of the cintiq.

edit: If you're using Photoshop 5 or higher you need to spend $5 on the Frenden brushes. They're absolutely freaking amazing. A lot of professional comic artists have started using them. They just came out about three weeks ago. http://frenden.myshopify.com/products/photoshop_pencil_and_inking_brushes

@MiteWiseacreLives! - Yeah I plan to make a bigger game, this was just a case of "learn the engine and just make a bunch of simple games to get better" I fully plan to have destructible tables and a use for that broken leg in later games, so don't worry.

@Ghost - Thanks! It's not much, but hopefully the writing and dialogue make up for the length and easy nature of it.

HELLO!

I started working on this game (primarily as a demo) back last September with the goal of wrapping it up before a convention at the end of October. After a solid 2 months of work and a load of help in the beginner's technical forum as well as some searches to older help threads, I completed the game on time and got to give away copies of it at the show. I even convinced the Two Guys from Andromeda to sit down and play it and they were very friendly, despite it being pretty low rent compared to what they put out : )

Regardless, I got lazy over the holidays and forgot to post it here so without further interruption, I present Trouble Ticket:




And here's the obligatory screenshots of the game in action





Based on the never popular webcomic of the same name, Trouble Ticket begins after a long night of mad science, where the brilliant roommate Evan has accidentally sent his closest two friends and himself, and possibly the entire world, into a virtual environment full of annoying puzzles and snarky dialogue. Can you, as the gruff and temperamental roommate Chuck, help solve the problem of a maniac computer gone rogue? Enlist the help of your other roommate Couch, the suave Australian ladies man, to solve the challenges and escape this game of doom.

It's a short game with just a couple puzzles (as I said it was more of a tech demo than anything, but it is a complete game) and it features VOICE ACTING, CUTSCENES, and A CHANGE-PLAYER system. ALSO I EVEN MADE AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL, HOW COOL IS THAT!?

All of the artwork and code was done by me, and I had voice acting help from some local talent/friends of mine.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think. I joined the forums back late summer last year and this was the first game I've made so far. I love the engine and want to do more.

Thanks!


Features
-voice acting
-640x400 resolution
-swappable player/inventory system
-really, really snarky dialogue...

Download The Game Here!

Basically they screwed up and publicly posted a software download and product key without any stipulations and every media outlet ran that as "FREE CS2" when what actually happened is that a legacy CS2 user needed to activate his software and they realized they were shutting down the license servers so instead of e-mailing him a key they put it online.

It WAS their screw up, but it was also the screw up of all the news outlets that just ran with it as well.

Having said that, all they've done is posted a disclaimer saying "hey, the link and key are still online, but DON'T USE THEM IF YOU DON'T ALREADY OWN THIS!"

So use your moral compass here, they're not going to break down your door or report you to the police, but it's technically software theft, even though the software was left cooling on a windowsill on a warm summer day.

Haldo!

Since I've been a lazy bastard and not actually posted my game demo yet I decided to kick off 2013 with an art thread to get some critique on some stuff I'm working on. I like making silly comics for the internet and I'm getting ready to launch an online sci-fi graphic novel in the coming weeks so I wanted to post that stuff here in the critic's lounge. Feel free to give feedback, good or bad!

Here's a few strips from a webcomic I do called Fortune Pancakes







And here's some random doodles from my sketchbook and some finished sketch cards (mostly stuff that's 1-2 years old)

















and here's a few teaser pages/wip images from the graphic novel I'm working on.

I like it, but I'm a sucker for old school console synth music. : )

Are you saying you want to use the wireless mouse dongle to send pictures to the computer wireless? That won't work.     

I know you said it's a last resort, but just call customer service. I had to do that and waited as a last resort a few months back and it was literally a 20 minute call. They logged into my system to make sure everything was legit and gave me a new key on the spot, not just entered it in, but gave it to me as a text file.

It was faster than the three hours of google searches I had done previously to try and fix the issue.     

They're not really that high considering the space they have to work with. I mean they're not really there to cater to indie game makers in the "one guy, one game" category, there's smaller shows and distribution methods there (I.E. the people here that make games that get interviewed on Indie blogs, etc.)

Shows like PAX that have indie booth prices are more for new studios looking to make a full time career in the gaming industry, or get their products name out there.

you got it!

So I guess that means it's my turn...



This one should be pretty easy, but it's a good movie and I know there's one person here that will get it in like 5 minutes.

Is that the new 21 Jump Street?

They were indeed big fans of AGS.

Honestly from what I gathered their only real reason for shying away from it for their games was that without completely rebuilding a few things it just wasn't easily portable to the iOS devices and it wasn't the best option to natively handle 3D, which seems to be the direction they're going with SpaceVenture.