Sketchroll Sketches With...

This will be my personal sketchbook.

I’ll be posting my sketches here with a little bit of information like what I am using to draw, the software, hardware, and maybe what inspired me to draw it in the first place. Feel free to ask me questions or for tips on any of the tools I am using and I also ask you guys to help me out with any perspective issues or tips that can improve my sketches. Thanks

Faces
»Drawn with reference photo using Photoshop CS5 w/custom brush + Intuos 5
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nice work!

Thanks yo!

Car
»Drawn using Bamboo Paper + Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Bamboo Paper Quick Review:
Bamboo Paper is my favorite android app for quick and dirty sketching on my Galaxy Note 2. It’s an extremely simple app with 3 different drawing tools: pen, eraser, and highlighter. As a hi-tec pen user, I felt the inking was similar to my favorite traditional pen and quickly fell in love with it. The highlighter is the icing on the cake, as it will automatically highlight behind any pen lines. This means that you can freely sketch and add value underneath your line work! Unfortunately the eraser erases both the pen and highlighter at the same time, so you’ll need to finish your line work before you apply any color. Lastly, you are limited to these 12 colors for both the pen and highlighter tool: White, Grey, Dark Grey, Black, Dark Blue, Blue, Light Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Magenta, and Light Purple… I however have never felt the need for more colors.

Nice sketches, I really like the style of the faces. At first sight I would not guess that they are made with digital media. And nice quick review on Bamboo paper.

Thanks Mixel, yea, I really enjoy using that brush for digital sketching.

Car
»Drawn using Bamboo Paper + Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Sub
»Drawn using Bamboo Paper + Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Panda
»Drawn using S Note + Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0

Shoe
»Drawn using Sketchbook Mobile + Samsung Galaxy Note 2


Motorcycle
»Drawn using Sketchbook Mobile + Samsung Galaxy Note 2

Car
»Drawn using Photoshop CS5 + Wacom Intuos 5
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Surface Pro + Sketchbook Express.
Verdict: If only it was more affordable.

Surface Pro Hands-On Impressions
I got a hands-on with a $999 Surface Pro at my local Microsoft Store. It was equipped with a red touch cover (nondepressable keys) and an active (wacom) stylus. There is NO stylus slot on the Surface Pro. Instead, on the right is a magnetic port that is used for both charging and attaching the stylus. This is cool in concept but impractical as the stylus cannot be attached when charging nor is it securely held in place. The Surface pro was propped up using it’s built-in kickstand. The screen is fixed at approximately this angle / with the kickstand. I initially felt the angle was perfect for typing but thought it would be uncomfortable for drawing. Surprisingly, I did the entire sketch while the screen was propped up. It was like a mini-easel and the sketching experience at this angle was better than I expected.

The surface pro did not have any art software installed other than Freshpaint. Luckily, it was connected to the internet and I logged into the Microsoft App Store, there I downloaded Sketchbook Express (Free). Once installed, the app loaded quickly. I threw down some lines with low pressure and lots of pressure then drew a bunch of squigglys with varying pressure. I was able to get a good range of pressure sensitive lines and the transitions between the light and heavy lines looked smooth. Satisfied, I began to roughly sketch out my car in red. Only after I finished did I realized, the free version comes with ZERO layer ability. (If there is layers, I could not find it). So, with the inability to draw on top of a new layer, I simply changed the pen color to a darker red and drew in my final lines of my car. Without layers though, it made it impossible to render the car and so I did not do that.

The Surface Pro stylus is extremely light. Like a galaxy note 2 stylus. It has a single button on the side, however it is an UGLY button. The button doubles as the magnetic clip that attaches to the side of the tablet. Again, it is cool in concept but terribly executed. The feel of the stylus on the screen is smooth. It is not grippy. Some may feel that it is too smooth, almost slippery. However, for me it felt right. It feels more like the intuos 3 than the intutos 4/5. Overall the drawings experience was good. If purely for drawing, I would give it a solid 9 with my limited hands-on.

I don’t remember if my palm was on the tablet. However, I did not have to change the way I normally draw. I just drew like I normally did and there was absolutely no instances of stray lines. Also, I was able to do two finger pan and zoom using the same drawing hand when needed.

Unfortunately, the price tag for this wonderful device is far too expensive. Combine that with it’s mediocre battery life of just 4 hours and it becomes hard to swallow. 4 hours is plenty for doodling but for real work, it is not enough.

Other Windows 8 tablets with active stylus.
Thinkpad 2 Tablet: $599 but not worth it at all…DO NOT BUY. Performance is sluggish. The lines could not keep up with my strokes.
Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro: $999 Good performance, good 1080p screen. I think it is wider than the Surface Pro. Hardware is rather clunky in both looks and functionality.

Nice. A store demonstration :slight_smile: when people see that sketch on the screen they all want the tablet.

whats the verdict on the experience sketching with that thing?

Verdict: If only it was more affordable.

Surface Pro Hands-On Impressions
I got a hands-on with a $999 Surface Pro at my local Microsoft Store. It was equipped with a red touch cover (nondepressable keys) and an active (wacom) stylus. There is NO stylus slot on the Surface Pro. Instead, on the right is a magnetic port that is used for both charging and attaching the stylus. This is cool in concept but impractical as the stylus cannot be attached when charging nor is it securely held in place. The Surface pro was propped up using it’s built-in kickstand. The screen is fixed at approximately this angle / with the kickstand. I initially felt the angle was perfect for typing but thought it would be uncomfortable for drawing. Surprisingly, I did the entire sketch while the screen was propped up. It was like a mini-easel and the sketching experience at this angle was better than I expected.

The surface pro did not have any art software installed other than Freshpaint. Luckily, it was connected to the internet and I logged into the Microsoft App Store, there I downloaded Sketchbook Express (Free). Once installed, the app loaded quickly. I threw down some lines with low pressure and lots of pressure then drew a bunch of squigglys with varying pressure. I was able to get a good range of pressure sensitive lines and the transitions between the light and heavy lines looked smooth. Satisfied, I began to roughly sketch out my car in red. Only after I finished did I realized, the free version comes with ZERO layer ability. (If there is layers, I could not find it). So, with the inability to draw on top of a new layer, I simply changed the pen color to a darker red and drew in my final lines of my car. Without layers though, it made it impossible to render the car and so I did not do that.

The Surface Pro stylus is extremely light. Like a galaxy note 2 stylus. It has a single button on the side, however it is an UGLY button. The button doubles as the magnetic clip that attaches to the side of the tablet. Again, it is cool in concept but terribly executed. The feel of the stylus on the screen is smooth. It is not grippy. Some may feel that it is too smooth, almost slippery. However, for me it felt right. It feels more like the intuos 3 than the intutos 4/5. Overall the drawings experience was good. If purely for drawing, I would give it a solid 9 with my limited hands-on.

I don’t remember if my palm was on the tablet. However, I did not have to change the way I normally draw. I just drew like I normally did and there was absolutely no instances of stray lines. Also, I was able to do two finger pan and zoom using the same drawing hand when needed.

Unfortunately, the price tag for this wonderful device is far too expensive. Combine that with it’s mediocre battery life of just 4 hours and it becomes hard to swallow. 4 hours is plenty for doodling but for real work, it is not enough.

Other Windows 8 tablets with active stylus.
Thinkpad 2 Tablet: $599 but not worth it at all…DO NOT BUY. Performance is sluggish. The lines could not keep up with my strokes.
Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro: $999 Good performance, good 1080p screen. I think it is wider than the Surface Pro. Hardware is rather clunky in both looks and functionality.

Fixed my android Thinkpad Tablet 1. Here are a few sketches from using it the past few days. You can keep up to date with all my digital drawings on my Facebook page in my signature below.

Android Thinkpad Tablet + NTrig Digitizer + Artflow app


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