The Wacom Cintiq 18sx tablet and a screenshot from Sketchbook. © Wacom. © Alias.

At the 2003 Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Jose, California I came across what I believed to be “the next big thing” for computer artists. At the Alias booth, they were running a copy of their then brand new software Alias Sketchbook Pro on Wacom’s also new 18” Cintiq LCD tablet. Without even trying it I knew that this was huge. These two tools just immediately felt like the next generation. I was lucky enough not only to try it back then, but again this past month. I would like to take this opportunity to review the two tools independently and also as a working pair.

Wacom 18" Cintiq First Impressions
Wow. That was my first impression. I remember back in 1990 when I got my first Wacom tablet. It was a huge, non-pressure sensitive monster. It was heavy like you would not believe with a bunch of thick cables connecting it to my computer. Learning to use a tablet took time since you had to become accustomed to drawing in one place and looking at another. As the years passed, my tablets got smaller, lighter, more comfortable and pressure sensitive. Now with the invention of the Cintiq series, the tablet is once again a huge monster… but it is worth it. The tablet portion alone is 17 lbs. and its dimensions are 18.4"x16.0"x2.8." On top of that is a really thick cable that adds a pound or two… and then there is the metal stand. Later, I will talk more about the weight, but as a note, that is basically the only major drawback of this Wacom.

Paired down interface in Sketchbook makes it more like sketching on paper. Images Courtesy of Alias.

Alias Sketchbook Pro First Impressions
At first glance, one might think that Sketchbook Pro is just a simple drawing program with a lightweight interface. Well, that is correct, but in a good way. Alias did an amazing job at getting rid of all of the junk and left only the most important tools for drawing. All of the extra selection tools, filters, complex alpha channels, etc are nowhere to be seen. The interface has been equally simplified. Just a small little nub in the bottom corner of the screen suffices as a portal to all of the tools in the package. The drawing tools were a breeze to use and immediately yielded great results. It really felt like a digital sketchbook.

Setup
First things first: setting up the new hardware and software. Alias Sketchbook Pro installed with no problem. The Wacom needed the Wacom drivers, which I downloaded from its site. Only the physical placement posed an installation issue for me. I run a dualview setup, so I figured I would replace my main 19" monitor with the Wacom Cintiq. The 18” Cintiq ships with an Imac-like adjustable stand. You can position, tilt and rotate the big tablet monitor so that it is most comfortable for drawing. Rotating the tablet while drawing is a snap. It is a great bonus to be able to spin the tablet around as if you were spinning paper around while drawing. Placement on the desktop exposed a few issues:

1. Where do I put it? It is large, so I will need to actually move my monitor off of the desk.
2. If I want it near me to make use of the awesome new adjustable stand for drawing, my keyboard needs to go somewhere else… but where? You see, if the tablet and stand are right in front of you for drawing, there is no room for anything else. So my keyboard needed to shift to the side. This is no problem if I am in Sketchbook Pro because they ingeniously created the software for tablets so no other input is needed. However, as a production artist I need to work in 3ds max, Photoshop and also mail and web apps like Firefox and Thunderbird. All of these need keyboards either for writing text, navigating 3D or using shortcuts.

The solution? Well, you could maybe get a swing-arm for your keyboard and move it in place or get one of those sliding drawers for under your desk. The whole keyboard issue is sort of a big deal. Personally I would have liked to see the Cintiq ship with software that emulated a keyboard on the bottom of the screen or even put a physical, lightweight keyboard into the Wacom hardware itself. Even a Palm Pilot-style writing system would have sufficed for the text apps issue.