Friday, February 28, 2014

Where do you order replacement nibs for the Wacom Bamboo Stylus if you live in Canada?

Here's the deal, you can't. It's the one thing Canadians apparently cannot purchase from your local Wacom dealer, and one of many things Canadians again can't purchase north of the border, regardlesss (a list which includes Cherry Coke Zero and In-N-Out burgers). However, here's how you - as a Canadian - can purchase replacement nibs for your Wacom Bamboo Stylus:

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Wacom Bamboo Feel felt nibs tip!

If you have a Wacom Bamboo tablet, or bought a Bamboo Feel stylus for your Samsung Galaxy Note, or are using the one that came with your Toshiba Excite Write, or are just so damn lucky to have a Cintiq Companion/Hybrid, at some point after a month or two of use, you WILL start to wear the felt tip out. The felt tip is the key to getting the feel of "tooth" on your screen so that it feels more like a "page" than a smooth piece of (likely) Gorilla Glass.

So, here are some tips to keep you drawing:

  1. Keep the tip clean: residue can impede performance, likely causing you to draw harder and/or to redraw lines, adding to the mileage.
  2. Try to keep your stroke pressure light; if you prefer to draw hard with your hand in a fist, don't say I didn't warn you.
  3. At some point, if you orient your pen in one specific way every time (either due to the secondary button placement or just because) you will find that the tip will chisel. ROTATE ROTATE ROTATE. Try to keep your nib from turning into a crayon or pencil tip you've drawn too hard on by rotating the pen once in a while.
  4. If you didn't buy a pen separately that may have come with replacement nibs, BUY SOME. They come in "firm" and "soft" varieties and variety packs. They just pop in and out of your stylus end.

Remember: keep the tip clean, rotate it once in a while, and only apply gentle pressure. Yeah, that sounded suggestive, but there it is.

Friday, February 7, 2014

ArtFlow Studio for Android has a beta update

One of my favorite drawing apps has a beta update: v1.4.20 Apparently it fixes a bug and will make loading from a gallery faster. If you go to "Settings/About" in ArtFlow Studio, you can see your version number (you will see an update message from the system when it's ready to download and install).

See my review on this great product here.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

APP REVIEW: Ink (the other "Ink") for Android

Ink - Sketch, paint, draw


"Competition improves the breed" so they say, and any Android drawing app is welcome on my tablet as long as it's good. Ink (not to be confused with Autodesk Sketchbook Ink) makes the claim that "The engine is Really Fast ! There is No delay between the touch and the following line." so does it live up to they hype?

Monday, February 3, 2014

Using Splashtop Streamer to draw on your tablet

I've used my tablet several times via Splashtop Streamer (comes for free with the Excite Write) to access my PC and my experiences with it so far on the Excite Write have been pretty successful. Watching high def movies and playing (windowed-only) high-end video games hasn't been without lag, but I've noticed that the better your WiFi connection, the better the results. For example, if you have a dual-band router, use the highest (e.g., 5G) settings available to your PC and the Excite Write, it helps. Physically plugging in your PC to the router and using 5G with the tablet seems to work really well.