Thick Fingers

[laura_seabrook]

I have over the last 10 odd years, been feeling the effects of rheumatism and arthritis. Nothing too severe, mind you - mostly stiffness. Anyway, today I thought I'd try using the graphics pad to do an illustration for my web comic. Below's the result:

After a false start using Painter (I really need to read the manual!) I reverted back to Paint Shop Pro. The figure at front is done using my standard technique of scan and colour hand drawn line work. No problems there. The scene at rear is based on the photo at Nova Roma, and was mostly drawn using the tablet.

OK, it hurt! I was gripping the stylus to tightly and at the wrong point.

The tablet itself (A4 size) had to be braced on the fold-out keyboard tray with the keyboard sticking out for access to the SHIFT/CTRL/ALT keys, and the mouse on top of the scanner. Not an ideal arrangement. I found it hard to draw a close line, but I guess that's all a process of learning.

My index finger is stiff and achy - not good. I might have been in front of this bloody computer too much in the last week.

Comments

[kath-ballantyne.livejournal.com]

It took me a while to get used to it.
I have troubles holding a pen, pencil and paintbrush too though and the tablet pen isn't much different to that for me as far as pain goes.

The new one I have has a much thicker pen, I'm used to it now but it took a while.

I'm in love with graphics tablets. *g*