HB1 pencils and camel-hair brushes haven’t yet gone the way of the hammer and chisel.
But some artists have left them far behind, choosing instead our SHIELD tablet’s DirectStylus 2 technology to create amazing works.
Powered by our 192-core Tegra K1 processor, DirectStylus 2 with GPU-accelerated painting effects lets you draw lines as thin as a hair or as thick as a brush, simply by changing the pressure applied on the screen. It makes writing, drawing and tracing as easy as using a pencil on paper or brush on canvas—with the digital advantage of endless re-dos.
A Little Dabbler App Will Do You
“The SHIELD tablet is very straightforward to use,” said Jing Hu, a Singapore-based visual artist whose illustrations and comics combine opulence and ornamentation with surreal touches. “It’s ideal for quick dabbles and creates beautiful, bold strokes, lush colors and textures.”
Hu likes the way the tablet “captures the feel of the traditional mediums,” which are reflected in the wide choice of oil paints and other mediums such as watercolor. Here Hu uses the Dabbler app to create a vivid watercolor.
Mastering techniques for watercolor painting are technically challenging, but our Dabbler app lets artists control the amount of wetness, ink fill and brush width with each stroke.
There’s no mess or waste but “a very elegant organic feel,” Hu said. She loves “the wide landscape screen proportion and the sensuality in the way the brushstrokes diffuse.”
Art on the Go
The unique angled chisel tip on the DirectStylus mimics the feel of a brush. Nicely compact, the SHIELD tablet is perfectly sized for artists to take their digital canvases wherever they go.
“When I am outside and come up with a good idea, I can draw the base for the artwork right away,” said Refeia, a Tokyo-based graphic artist. “Before I had the SHIELD tablet, I needed to bring a big tablet for any illustration.”
He uses the LayerPaint HD app on the tablet, similar to the tool he uses on this desktop PC, and enjoys the chisel-tip stylus pen, pressure sensing and speed of the device.
Refeia has an eye on his audience, and where his graphic work will be viewed. It’s already distributed in Japan’s comic market, published in art books and viewable on art websites. Part of the appeal of using technology to create art is that’s it is easy to control the quality, he said. “It’s easy to recover from any failure and easy to do trial and error.”
Gamer Goes Artist
Amateur artists have also embraced the tablet.
Salt Lake City-based Mike McKell, an acquisition manager for a publishing company, bought a SHIELD tablet with the intention of playing games on it while traveling for business.
Once he had the tablet in his hands, he started testing what he could do with its art apps. Here he created a fox using the stylus to make velvety-looking fur.
“I had such a blast the first time trying it,” he said. “I kept pushing myself to learn more and more. It doesn’t have a steep learning curve, and with my downtime, I quickly learned how to do basic artwork.”
To learn more about SHIELD tablet and DirectStylus 2.