I have not done any oekaki so far~ and just pondering the importance of a tablet as opposed to a mouse in this interesting art form~

a good artist can make art with sticks and mud, a poor artist thinks they need state of the art equipment.
a good chef can make a meal with simple ingredients, a poor chef thinks they need truffles and caviar.

Better equipment lends to better results, but equipment is equipment and whether you have the greatest tablet or not doesn't change that the art comes from you and not from your pen.


of course, I say this while using a tablet that you'd have to pry from my fingers to get me to give it up...

Thanks~ that kinda got it all in one go~ and a bit of philosophy as well

Just to say it's the artist and not the equipment, check this out http://2draw.net/view/26608/ totally mouse drawn.. as all hers were!

so I guess you could say it's a mouse drawn carriage.

Basically: A tablet lets you draw faster.

If you're a bad artist, you'll draw bad art faster. If you're a good artist, you'll draw good art faster.

For example, that car may have been finished in less than a day had she been using a tablet.

Hmm, I am pro-tablet, bad or good artist. It is healthier for your hands if you ask me. When using a mouse I get a cold hand really fast and bad art :D.

I drew with a mouse for a really long time. And then I drew with a tablet. I saw no improvement in terms of quality of art except for it is much quicker with a tablet, drawing with a mouse requires a lot of patience and zooming in! so pretty much, if you want to use mousing as an excuse for a lousy drawing, no one will take you seriously.

how can mouse be just as good....it seems like learning to draw all over again D:

knowing the techniques of how to move your hand when you draw and knowing things like composition, color balance, perspective, etc., are completely different things.

Suppose I got an airbrush. I've never used one before, so it'd take some time for me to become comfortable using it to where I could use it with any real control. But knowing where to place things in the art I make is something that would carry over from my other experiences. I wouldn't have to relearn what colors go well with each other, for example.

Essentially, using a new tool is just a matter of learning techniques, while learning to make art is only partly about learning techniques. I've seen other people, students in the same art classes I've taken in the past, who used a tablet for the first time and had about as much control as a polio victim with parkinson's disease having a seizure. If you use a mouse you have to learn to use a mouse, and if you use a tablet you still have to learn to use a tablet.

it's all in your head :'D

i started with the mouse and got damn good with it. when i got the tablet, i assumed it would just be immediately and incredibly superior to the mouse. it was unbelievably hard to control at first, just as the mouse was when I first started to draw digitally. now i will not give up the tablet and when i try the mouse occasionally again, it is almost as awkward as it was when i first started. everything takes practice. practice, practice, practice. keep practicing.

There's this misconception that tablets make the artist because it's usually the people who've spent alot of time drawing who go out to get them. Then beginning artists seem to believe that owning a tablet will make them draw like those more seasoned artists can. It was that way for when I started out on oekaki anyway... Three and a half years later, when I finally decided to get a tablet, I was sorely disappointed because I figured out how to do stuff with mouse that I thought could only be done with tablet. Maybe it's just me, but with mouse, I strived harder to draw better, whereas now that I have a tablet, I feel like it's just a given that I can draw well and that's totally not true.

Tablets are nice if you've got that extra cash to blow, but really, for oekaki (and drawing anime/manga styles in particular) using a mouse will be sufficient.

I completely agree. I started with a mouse and got used to it. Then I got a tablet. It was different at first but I liked it better. Then the tablet went kaput and I went back to a mouse. Ugh that was hard. But I'm used to it now. The only thing I can't do with a mouse is hair. It's a lot easier for me to do hair with a tablet. Oh and Axil, you always make me smile with your random thoughts. Keep up the good work.

i started out with a mouse on another drawing site, it felt really awkward, being that i'm left handed so i thought to switch the button functions... that didn't make it any better (felt like a stranger was using my hand... strange, i know) so i switched it back to default and forced myself to learn to use it...took awhile but i got better, but then i got my bamboo tablet and thought it would be better... it wasn't, until i turned all the button functions on it off, lol
now u'd have to beat me over the head to get it away from me, lol

I'm in love with the pressure sensitivity, so I'm happy I've a tablet :)

Before I got a tablet, I got used to the mouse...OK wait...let me backtrack a little further...before I got a computer, I drew with a pencil...a lot...and so I knew how to draw when I got a computer. Back then they didn't have tablets readily available to the average Joe. So I played with MS paint...a lot...with a mouse and became fairly adept. I messed around at a couple drawing sites here and there. Then I got a tablet and at first it seemed loose and kind of out of control because it didn't have that familiar drag that graphite against paper has and I didn't really care too much for it. So I kept using the mouse mostly, but then someone (staci) told me that if I kept at it with the pen it would begin to flow....and it did. As far as the pressure sensitivity goes.... gots ta have it. Anyway, if you can't draw on paper, if you don't have a firm grasp on perspective and color and composition, on anatomy... if you don't understand light and shadow, no pen and tablet will help.

I must say, I agree. I decided to get a tablet because I infact got so used to drawing on paper then got into pencil shading it would be easier for me to actually directly put them onto the computer instead of scanning all my pics. Though at first it seemed wierd using it... but I'm pretty used to it now. =)