A while back, we got the good people at Wacom to send us one of their fancy new Inkling pens to do a demo. You remember the Inkling right? It tore up people’s twitter feeds for about 24 hours. I figured I should get someone who knows their digital tools to put it through its paces, so I sent it off to indie animator Nick Cross. What I got back was a colourful commentary by not just Nick, but a trio of talented artists: Nick, Marlo Meekins, and Rex Hackelberg.
Here’s the video:
Spoiler warning: the verdict is a B+. Nick thought it was an ok gadget, but not a serious tool, particularly for animators. Rex liked it just fine and was gently ridiculed by Nick. Marlo was enraged.
Thanks guys.
Man no way did I ever even fathom you’d want to animate with that thing.
But as a sketch tool, it does seem pretty cool still. Since you can use whatever paper you want.
But it definitely seems like something you’d have to demo before you bought it, because if you didn’t like the pen then it’s all over.
Definitely a bit of a gimmick. Better to draw with your favorite pen or pencil and eraser, then scan it in.
I wish Wacom would focus more on getting better quality screens on their Cintiq’s. I don’t know about the new Gen Cintiqs, but I have an older generation Wacom 21UX Cintiq and the colors on it are horrible and can’t be calibrated to improve. (Many cintiq users have this problem). The resolution is too low as well. . big pixels. For the price the screen should be at least as color accurate and high rez as my much cheaper Samsung monitor. After all accurate colors are everything when digital painting.