New Powers

So I have finally bought an Inkling.

What is an Inkling? It's a product by Wacom- makers of fantastical tablets for digital drawing- that is an actual real life pen and sensor combo that digitally records sketches. This is different from the AMAZING Livescribe pen which is great for text and audio (for, say, lectures or meetings!) but only works on special paper (the science behind it is really neat). Wacom works on any paper and is basically magic.

The Inkling came out around this time last year and it was for about 5 seconds a big hit. And then it imploded. If you see side-by-side comparisons between the original sketches and the results it's wince worthy horrible (especially by people who don't respect the requirements-- like line of sight between sense and pen for one thing). If your style of sketch is a single pure line, this is not the product for you. Luckily I am more forgiving. When using a pen, I do the scribbly sketch style (not as well as some) but enough scribbles that the occasional drift looks just fine.

The Inkling product is lovely, compact, and just what I need given my apathy these days for scanning in artwork. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all my digital doodles though. I feel that my posting of many sketches in college helped me maintain artistic momentum, which I desire, but I lack the copious quantity of angsty posts to go with them. Am contemplating a tumblr account for just images... (although the odds of me posting an image without going "blah blah blah" are rather slim.)

The images are recorded at stupid high resolution- click on the above image of the Hugz Monster and then download the image to see the full scale of what maybe a 3"x3" sketch on paper. At least you can see that the lines are pressure sensitive as advertised. I've found that routinely reducing down to 12% brings the image down to near (enough) the original size and looks best.

I've consciously decided not to post side-by-side comparisons. The originals look better then the digitizations, but dwelling on that is not productive. I need to just focus on working with what I got.

I enjoyed using it at last night's gaming session- I always doodle during them and it's cute to be able to access the results so easily. Game sketches are often low on quality but highly pleasing to me for the memories they trigger.

I've taken to carrying it with me all the time now so anything is possible.





Along with the Inkling, I am always and even more so carrying my Kindle around. Have I ranted here yet about how much I love that damn thing? (joking- I know I have) Made super good use of it during my recent trips, travels, and not-working-ness. I hope that the sketching and reading can be tied together... For example, a doodle covering my "Ugly Boys" reading (as opposed to my "Red Women" selection)

• Immortal Lycanthropes - I absolutely love the style of writing in this- grab the Kindle sample and you'll see what I mean. Ugly characters make me smile. The world and story were interesting, the action fast paced, and the conclusion cute and neatly tied up. (avoid being spoiled at all costs) This is a stand alone novel about a young boy and shape shifters. No romance, just action and fun writing. Recommended!
• Warm Bodies - around the time I saw the horrible World War Z trailer, I also saw a trailer for the movie adaptation of this book. It looked cute and I had the time (12 hours on a plane back to be exact) so I grabbed it. It's amusing and fun like cotton candy. The ending is rather sloppy and doesn't make that much sense, but that's not the point you're reading it for. Zombie/Human RomCom story. Recommended for die hard zombie or cute YA romance book fans.