The Wacom Cintiq is assumed to be every digital artist's dream machine. If you have one and love it, great! If you're an artist wishing you had this device & longing for it - read on.
I used a 21" Wacom Cintiq for 2 years while working on Free Realms at Sony. It's a great device, but it has enough issues that I prefer a Wacom Intuos4 Large Tablet ($450) over the Wacom Cintiq($2000+.)
- One issue I never got over is - there's a 1/4 inch gap between the pen and the screen, so your pen isn't near the pixel you're drawing! It's like you have a 1/4 inch sheet of glass/plastic between you and your drawing (because you do.) There's a "calibration" feature, which helps, but you'll find as you get near the corners of the screen there's this gap that didn't exist in the center. This annoyed me from the first day to the last I used it.
- Another deal-breaker is the glass-like drawing surface of the Cintiq. The texture of paper gives your hand control over your pen/pencil tip - new Wacom Intuos4 tablets coat the drawing surface with a texture to simulate this. Nice! But it rubs off. (See my blog post for how to address this.) On the Cintiq - there's no way to fix it. You're stuck drawing on glass forever, which is fatiguing on the hand due to relying on a tightened grip for control rather than the tooth of your drawing surface.
- But you're not drawing on glass. You're drawing on plastic and it scratches! The scratches are subtle, but it mars the surface enough that the glare is somewhat irregular. It's not an issue if you're in a dim room, but surrounding office lights will help you notice the gradual degradation of your $2000 screen.
- Your hand blocks the art & UI! I never realized how annoying this was until I switched from Wacom Tablet to the Cintiq. Suddenly my hand was over the areas I needed to draw. Also, the corners of the Cintiq were harder to draw on than the corners of my tablet due to the drawing angle.
Which brings me to:
- Cintiq drawing fatigue! If you're used to painting on canvas for 8+ hours I suppose this isn't a big deal, but for me - holding my arm upward as a Cintiq requires never felt natural even after two years. It was doable but fatiguing. Other artists at Sony invested in these robot-looking ergonomic elbow supports. I never needed this with my tablet - I go for 10+ hours with no fatigue on my Intuos4.
And finally - for the money-conscious:
- A Cintiq costs ~$2000 for the 21 inch and ~$2500 for the 24 inch. The Wacom Intuos4 Large is only $450. The smaller Cintiq isn't really usable for drawing IMHO. If your company is buying it or you're highly paid, cool. But most artists I know working outside the game industry aren't rolling in money, and a Cintiq is $1500-$2000 more than a large Intuos4 - and lasts half as long at best.
Don't get me wrong - I liked the Cintiq. If it was what I had, I guess I'd use it. The things I listed above would still annoy me. (Especially the glass-like drawing surface.) I turned it down at my current place of employment in favor of the Intuos4 Large.
Bottom line - I do pretty well with my "nice game industry salary" and I still wouldn't buy one. It's one of those things where you really want it and long for it, but once you get it it's like --- "Oh, this is cool but it's not quite what I expected."
It's a good device, but don't go beating yourself up if you don't have one. A tablet is just as good and better in some ways, even.
And if you do buy a Cintiq - lower your expectations before you get it and you'll probably be happier than I was. I expected too much. I was expecting a surface that really felt like drawing directly on a screen, but that weird 1/4 inch gap was more awkward than a tablet particularly since it changes according to where you are on the screen or where your head is.
