An issue with Wacom's Intuos Creative Stylus and iPad Air

An issue? Well, at least for me there's none.

Already some time ago I started to dream about being able to draw with my iPad and utilizing the feature of pressure sensitivity. There seemed to be some styli with such a feature, but they needed a higher version of bluetooth than I had in my iPad 2. Somehow I managed to wait until the iPad Air came to markets and I put my money to it. Then it was time to buy the stylus. I had already done some searching and I had one specific stylus in my mind... but then I found out that it won't work with iPad Air due to some new technology Apple is using in its latest iPad.

Did I have a new fancy widget without a proper stylus???
Googling > Wacom promises that it's Intuos Creative Stylus will work with iPad Air. Googling > a lot of talk about Intuos Creative Stylus NOT working very well with iPad Air. At that point I was so desperate to get at least some stylus that even the few positive comments about ICS were enough for me. So I bought ICS knowing about the risk that it may not work properly.

Long were the days that I waited for the postman to bring me the stylus. Finally the glorious day came and it turned out to be... a glorious. Everything seemed to work very well.

Some comments say that one need to press the stylus quite hard to produce a decent stroke. At least in my opinion there is no extreme strength needed - and I'm not pending iron rails for my hobby. It's also very easy to get a lot of variation for the stroke thickness. Here's a one single stroke with a simple round brush.

Some comments say that not all strokes are registered. The same happens to me every now and then, but it's so rarely that it doesn't bother me a bit.

By the way, ProCreate is my new favourite of drawing apps. It seems to offer so many things that I couldn't even dream of them before. Here's some samples of its numerous brushes.

Also I need to say that I have NO experience of any other pressure sensitive styli, so I can't compare ICS to them. Anyway I believe I have drawn enough to say that the drawing touch with ICS is very good. I'm not saying that those unsatisfied comments about ICS are pointless, but in my case Wacom has definitely earned my faith.

So far I have posted in my blog a couple of semi speedy samples that I have drawn using ICS:
a sketchy robot painting and a coloured line drawing of villager character.

A lightly armed villager character

Here's a little something I drew to get familiar with my new drawing toys. The iPad Air and Wacom's Intuos Creative Stylus I already have had a little while, but now that I ended up trying ProCreate's drawing app I guess I've found the light - ProCreate is really a mind blowing drawing app! I guess I'm happy for a while with this holy trinity.

Robot - Getting familiar with Intuos Creative Stylus + iPad Air

Some time ago I updated my iPad to the latest version - iPad Air. Also I bought Wacom's Ituos Creative Stylus to be able to utilize pressure sensitivity. Yesterday I finally had a little bit time to quickly try out my new toys. Oh boy, it was so much fun! I haven't actually been so much into digital painting, but now I think that's something that may change in near future.

Cheerleader fan t-shirt

During the last year or so I've been drawing some cheerleader characters for different ice hockey teams. I used one of the characters to create a do-it-yourself fan t-shirt to cheer for my favourite sport team SaiPa, also known as "sputnik".

I ordered the shirt from the Spreadshirt service that I've been using a couple of times before. I'm glad to say that once again everything went very smoothly.

The good news is that I made some of the characters available for everyone who is willing to create a similar DIY fan t-shirt. The sport fan t-shirt shop can be found in address: http://cheer-for-your-team.spreadshirt.net/

Go ahead and check out the selection. I'll add more characters later on.

Caricature of Pekka Tirkkonen - the wizard coach of SaiPa

In between my other projects, I'm preparing my first caricature course, which will be in couple of months. As a part of that process I'm trying to improve my own caricaturing skills. The best way to do that is to do a lot of caricatures. I know I should just do a lot of quick studies, but when doing a caricature of the coach of my favourite ice hockey team I couldn't help myself going further and doing a whole illustration.

Also, once again, I couldn't resist the temptation to go with the space theme that is loosely related to SaiPa, as it has that sputnik satellite in its logo. That very same approach I did utilise when illustrated an imaginary cheerleader character for SaiPa a year or some ago. Which reminds me that I'm still four teams short of the full set of finnish hockey league teams. Hope to have time to do that during this hockey season...

When selecting the victims for my caricatures, I have been relatively kind for myself and picked quite easy targets. Easy or not, there really was some struggle during the process, but in the end I'm quite happy for the result. Also, once again, it was proved right what Pablo Lobato has said: it takes 70% of time to study the person, and only 30% to draw the final piece.

So, I'll probably post more caricatures sometime soon...

Another try for the recent sketch

I needed to fix the sketch that I recently posted. The cartboard boxes replaced with one plastic basket and different placement for the characters. Now that I think of this, maybe they should also have an eye contact with each other...

Illustration Friday - Secret

The mother and the father and of all secrets.

A late halloween - skull sketches

Here's what I came up with after a random sketching session. It seems that halloween came a bit late for me this year... And I came to think how easy it is to forget that it's actually this creepy object that every one of us is observing the world from.

Illustration Friday - Creature

A little something for Illustration Friday... in the middle of busy projects...

Sketchy portrait of Jussi Syren - iPad / Paper 53

Yesterday I went to see a music gig, that wasn't just any gig. It was bluegrass music in a church - sort of gospel bluegrass, I guess. The gig was great and the band was Jussi Syren & The Groundbreakers - absolutely the best bluegrass band in Finland, although there's none or very few others. I believe they do have some sort of reputation also in the birth-district of bluegrass.

Inspired by my first ever live bluegrass experience and the band's sturdy essence, I drew this quick sketchy portrait of Jussi Syren. I used iPad and Paper 53 app, which I have found to be an excellent for sketchy drawings.

Here's a sample of JS&GB's music.

Sketches of volunteer workers

I'm currently working with an illustration project that deals with recycling related issues. Here's some sketches for an image in which two volunteer workers are unloading boxes of donated clothes.

I gave the characters' faces more finished touch in order to give my clients better understanding how the characters really look like. Those boxes have an important role in creating a straight and vigorous composition.

A stressed truck driver

One of my recent works was an editorial illustration for a magazine. It was about how much money is spared with a decent driving style. Not to mention how ecological it is. Once again, it was more juicy to present how things are done the bad way. Therefore the actors of this play are a stressed truck driver, a heaten up engine and a draining gas tank.

I ended up presenting things in infographic'ish way.

... and here's some close-ups.

Zombie sketches with Paper 53 iPad app

Little by little I'm getting used to using iPad for sketching. Here's some zombie sketches for a recent project. I have some 3-4 drawing apps in my iPad. I try to use them all, but so far the work flow of the Paper 53 app has been the most comfortable for me. It's pretty intuitive. And that's the app I did these sketches with.

... oh, and here's the finished version by the way. It's done in Adobe Illustrator.

Some character sketches for a volunteer dude

I started a new project some time ago. Here's some very first sketches for a volunteer dude character. Fluffy hair was something that I thought would fit perfectly for him.

Pappa-Tunturi summer shirt

So it's summertime, which means t-shirts... As there's never too many of them I decided to make one for my upcoming vacation. For a print - summery enough - I chose this Pappa-Tunturi illustration which I did for Happy Pappa-Tunturi Drivers couple of years ago. Some minor customization I did to make it work better in dark background.

Happy summer!

Illustration Friday - Equality

Due some busy work projects I haven't got time to take part in Illustration Friday for ages. This week I decided to ignore the hurry and do something quickly. Actually this is also an experiment of style and technique for an upcoming project.

Well, equality... in the end I have no idea how did I end up with something like this... or maybe a naked man and a woman jumping with colourful hazes really is all that equality is about.

Downshifting by a tiny vegetable garden

Here's a recent illustration I did for a short story that was about downshifting. Maybe it's the summer time that got me to use a vegetable garden as a symbol for slowing down and taking easy. The office costume may now serve as a scarecrow. Happy slow summer!

Failed rhino head illustration

Sometimes it's good to read scripts a bit more carefully. Here's a rhino head illustration that I just finished for a book project. I was quite happy with it... only the text is about a cute baby rhino... which this one obviously isn't. So, I'm about to get familiar with Photoshop's "baby-lizing-filter".

Oh, this is my blog post number 100 by the way. Should there be a party for that kind of things?

Sketch of a desert shepherd

A quick sketch for an ongoing project. I'm doing a lot of tiny spot illustrations for a map of Africa. I visited Sahara some 13 years ago, but I don't recall seeing any shepherds. Thanks to Google image search I had at least some references to lean on.

A mental mindset of development

Just finished an editorial illustration. I tried to visualize a mental mindset of development. This time I decided to do without Pegasos and other mythic creatures.

Teenagers cleaning up the house

Lately I've been working on teenager characters for a project that started already two years ago. As I'm not able to post the new ones until they are published, here's a sample from last year's set - teens cleaning up the house. The biggest fun is to clean Ming Dynasty vases.

Total saldo of my sketching trip

Home again. Here's the total saldo of sketches I did during my recent work-leisure-trip to Milan, Italy. Milan can definitely be added to the list of cities where it's nice to do some work. I'm looking forward the next trip/city.

War helmet doodles

I believe there comes a time for every one of us when one becomes aware of his or her inner ancient-war-helmet-enthusiast. For me that was yesterday and the place was Castello Sforzesco in Milan.

Wouldn't that be nice to see for example nowaday's ice hockey or football players wear such fantastic pieces of art... made of full metal of course ;)

Fun and work in Milan

As my office/studio is pretty convertible I packed it into my pocket and flew to Milan. Naturally I've mainly enjoyed the city but I've also worked a bit. Here's how my studio looks like at the moment. It consists of chair, iPad, drawind board, two pillows to adjust the height and of course the nice view!

During my trip I'm doing only sketching.

I also found a book with nice illustrations by Matteo Piana. At the moment my italian is not enough to read it easily, but I'm getting forward... lentamente, ma certamente ;)

Sketching yoga poses

Some yoga poses I sketched for an ongoing project. It would serve as a good croquis drawing session to draw people doing yoga... How badly they would want anyone to draw them is another story.

Ice hockey cheerleader 9/14 - Pelicans

I'm desperately trying to finish my series of hockey cheerleaders before the season 2012-13 ends. As the finals between Tappara and Ässät are already in 1-1 situation, there's not too much time left. Anyway, the following cheerleader character is for Pelicans from Lahti.

As with the previous team Ilves (Lynx), there was no need to have any brainstorms to come up with ideas as the team has such a name. But instead, I've been scratching my head already beforehand - how to refer to such a funny looking animal in elegant way? Apparently I've been processing this problem on subconscious level, because in the end the solution came easily.

I was also happy to be able to leave poms out. I'm kind of fed up with them. That's most probably because I'm not happy how I have drawn them. Now that I look back to some earlier characters, the poms look like dead beavers. I seem to think that it's a pom that makes a cheerleader.

Ice hockey cheerleader 8/14 - Ilves

Next up in my series of imaginary cheerleader characters for finnish ice league teams is Ilves from Tampere. Ilves, translating to Lynx, gave such an obvious reference, which led me to this catlike pose with a bestial glance.