Bad Morning...

So I did this whole painting of a monster and then realized, yet again, what I thought I was painting on the cintiq, was in fact a disaster when I saw it on the laptop. Seems like the cintiq is crushing all my heavy black gradients together, making it pretty much like I'm always painting blind when it comes to darks. Even with the Dindle paintings, I find I have to mess with the contrast and saturation just to salvage a little of what I first intended. It's really frustrating, considering how crazy expensive the cintiq was and that I'm using the cintiq's own colour calibration settings. I've messed with the contrast and brightness and all the buttons I can find on it to no avail.

Okay rant done :) Had to sketch something quick so I could still have a post for today.

*update*

So I called Wacom support and they sent me a new colour profile that didn't really change anything, so I think I have concocted a solution myself by hooking up my old Intuos tablet to the laptop side. This way, I can drag the paintings back and forth between screens to make sure my darks are all pretty and edit them on either screen. Cleaned up my monster painting from this morning... and don't worry, he doesn't eat babies. He just steals them away to the forest, sings them a lullaby of his own invention, then carefully carries them back home.

Comments

pascal said…
this looks painful!
aoucchhh...


so..you're using a cintiq..
I was wondering about that actually..
hmmmm..
Anonymous said…
Hey Sarah, you should check out a tablet PC. What you see is what you get. Plus you can take it anywhere, the whole computer is right there with you. I love mine.
sarah said…
The Gorski's have one of those! It's so cool and makes me jealous.

I love the drawing area on the cintiq, it's like a big giant sketchbook. But yeah, it's lack of portability is big drawback :(
mike said…
ha ha! i love how the worm's laughing at your fish! stupid fish.. :D
Mark Behm said…
Awesome fable idea.

Careful. My TabletPC seriously crushes my blacks AND whites. Bottom 20% maybe top 10%. And the angle has to be dead on.

Can you use a calibration spider thing on a cintiq? Is that maybe an issue?
Unknown said…
that worm has gotten the best of that fish!

Im such a fan boy of your designs. The dindle story is comin along wonderfully! Look forward to seein how the story turns out.
drono said…
great artwork!
frustrating technical difficulties. i keep going to the tablet more and more, but i prefer the "real" mediums any day.
Anonymous said…
Welcome to the wonderful world of colorspaces. LCDs have terrible color compared to a good ol' crt. This is why those Sony Artisan monitors are still around and cost a fortune.

Pickler
Kevin Cromwell said…
Well, the monster looks great, and I love the fish. I assumed the hagard/desparate look might have something to do with your problems with the cintiq.

I do have to say that I had a tablet PC for a while. It was a fliptop laptop by Toshiba, it was a good idea but ended up being pretty flakey. After a while it seemed to forget where the pen was.

Anyway, good luck with it.

:)=
3DBurke said…
Usually I just push harder on the crayons to fix most of my problems. Have any suggestions for staying in the lines?
Alex Fleisig said…
that fish looks to be reflecting your mood, after all the cintique frustration. Sorry, to hear about that. Something that expensive should work better, and not need a workaround. I think if I get a drawing tool for my computer, I'll take your advice and go with the simpler less expensive tablet. Nice monster drawing.
Tyler Stott said…
th witch at the bottom is DEF. my fav, you really pushed the design:)
sarah said…
Thanks everyone!

Maybe it is better to have the two screens. At least I can check them against each other. I do prefer real paint too.... but I do like the infinite nitpicking I can do digitally :)

Andrew, I've tried and don't recommend crayons, they just don't come off the LCD screen.

And hey Rich! I do miss my CRT. It's actually under my desk at my feet. Wonder if I can hook up three monitors... that would probably make my graphics card explode.
911_truthiness said…
Don't trust the laptops monitor especially if it's a PC. PCs tend to have awful ColorSync support.

Best to calibrate both to be consistent to your output device, whatever that may be. I use a EyeOne calibrator on all my monitors, from the Cintiq to a NEC CRT to my Macbook and there is very little variance from one to another.