It takes time, a lot of time.
Agreed. Practice, practice, practice.
I’ve been using a Wacom for years, still learning new tricks. It is so much faster and more efficient than paper ever was for me.
To really get the hang of it, I stopped using a mouse for an entire month… whether it was dragging files from one folder to another, editing a word document, playing a youtube video, etc, I used the pen. I wasn’t even sketching for that month, just using the pen.
At the end of the month, I opened up a blank canvas in Photoshop, and instantly knew what I was doing.
Long strokes… just like paper, sketch from the shoulder. There are hot keys that allow you to rotate the canvas in the program, as for right handers it can be difficult to make the top right to lower left sweeping arcs and such.
300dpi / 8.5" x 11" … unless I’m doing a sketch for a presentation or poster, then I go 300dpi / 11" x 17".
If your lines don’t look amazing when you zoom out, it could just be your monitor, video card, and/or resolution. Another thing I learned, when zooming in and out in graphic programs, pay attention to the zoom %. 25%, 40%, 50%, 75%, 80%, 90%, they will all be crisp. As soon as you see 33.33%, 78.5%, then things get choppy.