Monday, October 29, 2012

Sketchy hardware, and women.

So, haven't posted any art since before NYCC... why? Well, I recently purchased an affordable graphics tablet I'd read lots of good things about, a 6.25x10" from Monoprice. Because, yes, I still use a mouse for all my coloring and graphics work, etc. Sure, I've wanted to get a Wacom tablet, or better yet their Cintiq, but those cost a lot of money. And I actually bought a used Wacom years ago, and never used it (but mainly because I thought a larger size would be good and got a 12x12" - which was way too big).

Anyways, the Monoprice was only around $60 with shipping, so what the heck.

Got it and hooked it up in August, but hadn't spent much time playing with it. However, I started to have problems with my OS and/or my mouse, that got increasingly worse, as I was prepping for NYCC. And to the point where my PC was pretty much useless, and especially in Photoshop. And, Photoshop had even stopped working altogether  after numerous manual power downs having locked up the PC with no mouse or keyboard functionality... it stopped even opening up.

After un-installing and removing the tablet, the obvious offender, and getting rid of my mouse, I got everything to run fine on the PC, but even after un-installing and re-installing Photoshop I had no luck with it. It just hangs and won't open. I even took to the Adobe help boards, but again with no resolution.

Now, I bought Photoshop back in 2003, and I believe it was CS3, so it's probably time to update anyway, and in fact, that's what I've done. Being not too PC savvy, I'm at a dead end to problem solving the issue with Photoshop, so I noticed while being on the Adobe site, that one can download current software for a trial period, and that's what I've done.

So, I can finally start posting some artwork again, as, without Photoshop, I couldn't even save files as web viewable, let alone edit or adjust anything. Now I'm running PS CS6, and having only played with it for less then an hour, I'm already impressed.

Meanwhile, here's some art.
Two sketches I did at NYCC... a surly Wonder Woman, that sold at the show, and since I liked the idea of that one so much, I'd like to do a series of them, and did one of Princess Leia as well.


The Leia is available for $30, email me for shipping and payment info.

I believe the issue with the tablet had to do with the driver SW, as I know folks have had problems with that, but don't know that I'll mess with that again, as I just can't problem solve if something else goes wrong (and Monoprice has no support to speak of... as, you do get what you pay for).

JMart on the web: 

1 comment:

clayholio said...

Bummer about that tablet - I was considering getting one. But my laptop's fried right now anyways, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Hope you have better computer luck soon!