Art Review: 2018 iPad vs iPad Pro

Apple finally made a normal iPad with Pencil support! Here is my review of the 6th gen 2018 iPad, compared to iPad Pro:

Wacom Bamboo Slate

Here is my artist review for the Wacom Bamboo Slate. I picked this up for $90 on Amazon, but unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations...

iPad Pro + Pencil Artist Review (vs Wacom Cintiq Companion)

I've been using the iPad Pro + Pencil for a couple of months now, and I think it's the best digital drawing experience that I've ever had. For sketching and drawing, the Pro and Pencil just feel so natural. Apple made something different, whereas other drawing tools and tablets are either made by Wacom, use Wacom, or trying to copy the Wacom stylus. I'm a huge Wacom fanboy, so it's hard to win me over, but Apple did it! The Apple Pencil is truly is an incredible first gen device, see the review video below, to see why:

iPad Pro + Pencil Artist Review


Procreate is my favorite drawing app on iOS, it really is an amazingly powerful app. It has everything you need for sketching and painting. Here is my tweaked Pencil brush for Procreate. Here are directions on how to import brushes into Procreate from Dropbox: The brush is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8y5grf3eqsbnkd/Apple_Pencil_Crabfu.brush?dl=0

I found the tilt setting on most drawing apps make the line thickness way too much, and Procreate was no exception. This may make the Apple Pencil look really impressive at first, tilting will turn your pencil into a gigantic graphite stick, but is very hard to control. After a lot of tweaking with this brush, I'm very happy with the results. It feels like a natural pencil, when a bit of shade when you tilt it down low. This pencil brush, along with the pressure curve + screen protector shown in the video, made all of the difference.

Here are some of my sketches, using 100% iPad Pro/Pencil & Procreate:

Portrait sketch practice, me and my boys. I used ipad's split screen view, to see reference pictures on half of the screen, and sketch on the other half, worked out great.

I'm not much of a painter, but testing out painting rather than drawing.

Sketch of my wife

Love the blue pencil feel!

And a sketch using Sketchbook Pro

Previously, I reviewed the Wacom Cintiq Companion, Wacom Creative Stylus, and Galaxy Note, and other Tablet PC's, but now it's hard to imagine wanting to use them over the iPad Pro/Pencil. I still need to keep the Cintiq Companion, for heavy duty photoshop stuff for work. But if I want to just draw, design some characters, sketch out ideas, even render in color, I think iPad Pro can handle just about everything I need. At half the cost of the Wacom Cintiq Companion, I'd strongly recommend iPad Pro and Pencil.

Sketchbook Pro 7 Animations

I finally got around to testing out the new Flipbook Animation feature on Sketchbook Pro 7. It's amazing to use my favorite drawing tool to animate! Currently, it is very basic and limited, but enough to do roughs and cycles like these. I used to be a 3D Animator, but I've never actually done any 2D animation. Years ago, I transitioned into Concept Art, and have been putting in a lot of sketching miles over the years, so it is great to be able to put these two passions together. And boy, is it harder than it looks.... much more studies and practice needed! I sure hope that Autodesk continue to support this feature, and turn it into a full animation program.

Animated with Sketchbook Pro 7, and Cintiq Companion 1, with Muybridge reference.

Huffington Post, Sketching Chopper

I had an amazing opportunity to interview with the Huffington Post, here's the article about how I design Skylanders.

I was also put on the spot to draw, so I did a super quick and loose Chopper. It's been forever since I've drawn on actual paper with a pen, no undo! Wished that I had more time and more a few takes at it, but here it is:

SDCC Panel, Skylanders Character Development

Me, with Richard Horvitz (voice of Kaos), Ron Marz
 (Skylanders Comic Writer)

The Skylanders Comic-Con panel was a success! The panel was great, and the costume contest was amazing! There was quite a turn out, packed with over 480 people, and had to turn some away :( Sorry for those who waited but were unable to get in! If Activision post up a video of the panel, I'll update it here. But for now, here's the eye candy that I brought and showed at the panel. There were several slides missing from my presentation, but I’m posting all of the images here. We usually don't show much of the character concept art for Skylanders, so I'm happy to have the opportunity to show the fans at Comic-Con, and now, to you all!

Before Skylanders

Steam Centipede

Talking with Activision PR about the presentation, we thought it'd be cool to share some of my geek cred with the Comic-Con crowd, so I started off talking about my tinkering hobby. I've been working in the video game industry since 1998, but before Skylanders began, I thought that I was going to be known for one thing; Steam Powered Robots. Yes, they are really steam powered, at a small scale. I made them for fun, because I was really interested machines, and loved to make things with my hands. I gained a lot of attention on geek blogs, magazines, and on TV. As a result, my youtube channel has over 6.8 million views. Aside from steam, I've also made some very simple characterful electric robots. I only showed images of these machines on the panel, but I'm posting a couple of the videos here in addition:

Steam Powered R2

Steam Walker

Swashbot

Hamster Walker

On Polygon

On Modern Marvels

More Video Coverage on WIRED, Discovery Channel, NBC. Magazine coverage here, and my website: www.crabfu.com.

Early Skylanders Prototype Tinkering

My tinkering skills helped in prototyping the early toy models and hardware. Along with the real wizard of Skylands, Robert Leyland, a TFB programmer with a hobby in electronics, hacked together the first portal. It was made out of PVC pipes, kitchen sink drain cover etc. Early prototype character toys were crudely made by hand with Sculpy, and cast in silicone molds. They were hand painted, and although they didn't look perfect, they got the idea across of this Toys-to-Life experience. Skylanders was an idea that sounded crazy on paper, but as soon as we touched the toy figure, and experienced the magic moment of the toy coming to life, we knew that we had something special. Luckily, Activision did too.

One of the first Portal, using PVC pipe and kitchen sink drain covers,
which made really good reflectors for the LEDs.

The first crudely sculpted prototype toy, showing the silicone mold
of the body. The head was casted from a separate mold.

Food Fight

One of the most common questions that I get asked is "how do you come up with characters?". Here are some examples of the concept process. I pull a lot from nature, which has always been my biggest influence. Food Fight begin like most Skylanders, just random doodles. I was trying to come up with a plant based little critter, and explore lots of different ideas on a page. He started feeling very cute, but lacking any sense of a “hero”, and doesn't look like he would do well in a battle.

Early Explorations, was thinking of a venus flytrap, or hot peppers,
infused in a cute plant based character 

I then explored more on the character, trying to find a cool angle to take him. One aspect that I really liked with this guy, is the tactile feel of the spiky bits on his head. There is something very primal about wanting to pick up an object, just to feel it with your fingers. I wanted that to be a big part of him, so he turned into a artichoke-ish character.

The top characters started the spiky artichoke hair

After deciding on an artichoke theme, I played around with more porpotions, and explored different options for him

He's starting to emerge

More Explorations on the same theme 

The next step is what weapon to give him. He is a cute little guy, so I wanted to balance him out a bit with a cool weapon. I explored some different guns types, and shooting different veggies. But in the end, we went with something very simple… Tomato gun!

Trying out weapons

Final Food Fight Concept

At this point of the character process, we show the characters to Activision Execs and Marketing, making sure that everyone feel strongly about each of the characters. The final design is then modeled by our amazing modeling team. I nitpick over every little aspect of the model, from expression to surface details. After the high res model is finished, we make an in-game version, and rig it for the game, and animated. I then use the rig to pose a bunch of different poses on the character, and 3D print out the best poses. We make lots of edits at this stage, not only tweaking poses, but also expressions, surface detail, and sizes. I also agonizes over exact Pantone color of paint, and decide on different ways to paint the character. Here is the final version:

Final pose, expression, and colors

3D Print (left), compared to the final production toy (right)

Next, I'd like to share a couple of examples of characters that lay dormant for a while, but eventually came to be. Sometime the hardest characters turns out to be some of the best.

Kript King

Kript King started out as the very first Giant. I was thinking of what it means to be a Giant in Skylands, what a Gaint should feel like. So I took Chop Chop, and made a ultra version of him, a Chop Chop Daddy, I kept calling him. In the end, we didn't use him as the Undead Giant (Eye Brawl took that spot), but I wanted some way to bring him back in Trap Team. He went through some changes, mostly in color and proportions, but largely retained his look and feel. I am very happy with the way that he eventually turned out, and glad to see as a Trap Master Skylander.

Original "Chop Chop Daddy" Giant, next to Chop Chop

Roughing out proportions 

Testing colors

Playing with headdress

The final Kript King figure

Chopper

This dude started out when Nat Loh, one of our game designers, asked if I could make a Tech T-Rex with mounted guns. If you personally know me, you know that I love dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. In fact, I have an unhealthy trilobite fossil collection. So, I was in love with the idea of a T-Rex in Skylands, but for the life of me, could not figure out how to make a T-Rex Giant work. T-Rex's are more horizontal than vertical, which doesn't play nicely when trying to fit onto the portal with other toys. And we'd  have problems trying to fit him in the blister pack package, being so horizontal. In the end, we tried other ideas for the Tech Giant spot, and eventually ended up with the fast shooting tech robot, Bouncer.

Original Tech-Rex Giant tests

In development of Trap Team, I decided to take another stab at a Skylander T-Rex, and made him as stubby as possible. I really love they was he was feeling here, he just struck a really nice chord with me... did I mention that I love dinosaurs? but the mounted canon just didn't feel right, it didn't flow well, and would cover up much of him, especially in-game.

The compact character is cool, but the weapons just isn't working.

I doodled up a bunch of ideas below, for different weapons and abilities. His final form is a T-Rex with Helicopter, Mech-Suit Legs, and Missiles. My inner child imploded with this one.

Trying different weapons and abilities

Final Chopper Concept: T-Rex+Helicopter+Mech Suit Legs+Missiles

Final 3D Print

Final 3D Print

Final Chopper!

Kaos

In development of Skylanders; Spyro's Adventure, we needed an ultimate bad guy. At first, I just started drawing random bad guys, but they all felt too generic, too boring, or too scary.

Too generic, and they don't feel like
leaders 

meh...

Luckily, Paul Reiche, the studio head and creative force behind Skylanders, had a vision for Kaos. He should be a powerful, but annoying little guy! So I took another stab at him, but what I ended up with just didn't feel like he's got the emotional range needed for the role.

Focus on being a little powerful guy

Then came a crazy idea. You, the player/kid, is a Portal Master. What if the evil portal master is also a realistic person? So with this direction, I took another quick couple of shots at a small, but more realistic Kaos. I tried to bring out the Napoleon complex in him, but they just ended up looking pathetic and creepy.

Embarrassingly bad attempt at a realistic-ish
character, he just looks like a creepy old clown...

Poor pathetic looking guy... even with the medals, he
just isn't someone who you could imagine taking over
the world

So, going for a more powerful feel, and a bit younger, I took another stab at this realistic vibe. In this version, his personality is starting to come through, the facial markings and the overall feel are now something that I really wanted to keep.

Although this isn't what Kaos ended up, he has the qualities that passed down to the final version. 

But the realistic-ish look had to go, it's just too jarring to make this kind of transition. So I sat out to make him more cartoony. I experimented with a bit with different body styles, while retain much of the same look and feel as before. We ended up liking the bottom left guy here, he's "the most likely villain to take over the world" in this class picture.

Time to bring him back to more Skylander style

And that's how Kaos was born, along with his Alter Ego floating head, which remained a little more realistic.

The final sketch that solidified Kaos, with his alter ego floating
 head (from Spyro's Adventure)

After that, I did some more sketches to get a better feel for his character. But it wasn't until the animators and Richard Hovwits' voice came to being, that he truly became the Kaos that we know today.

More sketches to get a better feel of who he is

Some quick tests

He's not a big guy, but I wanted him to feel powerful

And of Course, he's not complete without Glumshanks!

That's all that I can show for now. Thanks for those who attended the panel, and thanks for the fans that came up to chat with me. It was quite a humbling experience, it makes all of the hard work worth while. I hope that you enjoyed seeing some of the behind the scenes stuff here! below are some pics from SDCC.

First place goes to Scratch, for $4k

Jet Vac and Gillgrunt at the Skylanders Booth

Me and the voice of Kaos, Richard Hovwits

Costume contest

Adorable Scarlet Ninjini

Chompy Mage with Skylanders kid reporter

Eruptor!

Wacom Cintiq Companion Review

I'm an early adopter of Tablet PC's, since my first one in 2002. That sucker was a brick, cost nearly $2k, but at the time was considered inexpensive for a Tablet PC. Jump a little over a decade later, and for about the same price, you get an art dream machine. The Cintiq Companion is one amazing device, there isn't much to dislike about it, so let me first just get the bad points out of the way.

Price

It's expensive. Currently it's around $1800 for the PC 256GB version ( in this review). It is pricey when compared to a Microsoft Surface Pro/Pro2, or Samsung Ativ Pro, or other Tablet PC's with similar specs today. The Companion is many times more cost than the Samsung Galaxy Note line, reviewed here, or an iPad with the Wacom Creative Stylus that was previously reviewed here. Most Tablet PC's and the Galaxy Note line, also use Wacom's digitizer tech, but at a reduced pressure levels. So it is hard to justify the price jump to a Cintiq. 

Power button

Compared to the sticker shock, the rest of the issues feel minor in comparison. The power button has got to be one of the worse design placements of any tablet. You constantly hit it while picking up the tablet. Luckily windows 8 boots fast with Companion's SSD drive, wake back from sleep within 5 seconds, or boot up in about 8 seconds. When you get used to that sort of boot time, normal computers just feel really slow. But I've hit the power button accident so often, that I've disabled the button to power off. However, you can still use the power button to turn on, which could be a problem when it's carried in the sleeve. So I've set it to go to sleep in just 2 minutes of idle while in battery, in case it gets bumped on by accident. This is perhaps the worst thing about the Companion.... the power button should at least be recessed, and in a location that isn't easy to trigger.

Speakers

The speakers are horrible, they sound like the volume is all of the way up on a pair of really cheap ear buds.  

Smell

One of the first things that I noticed with Companion, is the smell. It smells terrible. Not like a new electronics/computer smell, but like a toxic plastic smell. It was VERY strong, and took me a while to realize that it came from the sleeve that comes with the tablet. It is a beautiful sleeve, but the inside stinks! Once realized, I turned the sleeve inside out and let it air out in the garage for a few days, and the smell cleared.

Stand

I have a love/hate relationship with this stand. It works ok, the 3 available angles are good, but feels very cheap. I am disappointed mainly because it could have been so much better designed. I wished that it did two things: 1) that it locks into place. It doesn't, it just pressure fit into the slots, and can come out when you pick up the tablet 2) that is doubles as a cover for the front! Maybe Wacom will improve this in the future.

Now.... the good stuff:

Stylus:

The pen's sensitivity is buttery smooth, as you'd expect from the Cintiq line. I'm not sure how many people noticed, care, or can justify the difference between 1024 levels of pressure vs 2048 levels, but I do. I particularly notice the low end levels of pressure. Even on the Samsung Ativ Pro tablet PC, (also windows 8 tablet, with 1024 levels, using Wacom digitizer), I set up 2 pencils that I use to draw with, to cover light line work of a single pencil on the Cintiq. Don't get me wrong, 1024 levels is more than enough to work with, I'm just spoiled by 2048 of the Cintiq's. It is mostly because I have a very light hand when it comes to sketching, and notice the ultra low end levels. Even at the lowest level of a 1024 level stylus, it just doesn't feel light enough, once you get used to a Cintiq. If you have a heavy hand, I don't think this level difference will make any difference to you. The differences are minor, and it's more of a "feel", maybe I'm the only person who care..... but it does make a difference for me.

Painter Lite's Pencil recognizes tilt of the stylus.
These lines were created using one pencil
without changing brush size or opacity

On Painter Lite, the program recognizes stylus tilt. This allowing you to vary opacity with pressure, but line thickness with pressure tilt. It took me a good hour to get used to using it, it's a bit different than using a real pencil, but I now love it. The line weights, and the look of the pencil lines, makes it feel more like traditional pencil and paper. In fact, as I was trying to get used to drawing with the Painter Lite pencil, I would instinctively worry about smearing the pencil lines under my hand, before remembering that I was working digitally.

Screen

The screen is awesome, it has some sort of coating on it, that is different than the 12,21,22,24 inch Cintiqs that I've used. It is not smooth, like any other digitized screens that I've ever drawn on. It has a slight texture to it, so that it's got a bit of drag to it. Using the default plastic nib works great on this new surface, and feels more like a traditional pencil on paper to me. I hope that Cintiq sticks with this surface for their future products, it is brilliant. The coating on it also makes it less glossy, and glare is reduced, yet clarity and colors look nice.

Where's the bloatware?

The Companion comes with no extra crappy software, how refreshing is that!? This is a computer for professionals, and it shows. It is so refreshing to boot up to windows 8 for the first time, and see very few tiles, and no notifications for useless software that I may want to try. However, because the machine is so clean, it doesn't come with a partition for recovery image. So back up!

Battery

I've delayed this review because I wanted to fully test it out. I've been using this for several months now, and have been using it for work when I work remotely at home, or dragging it to the coffee shop. I'm getting around 4 hours of battery on a full charge, in normal drawing mode, with the screen brightness about half way. That isn't great battery life, but it's not too bad either for a powerful laptop. Hopefully Wacom will update this with the Haswell chip in the future, and dramatically extend the battery life. But for now, 4 hours is not that bad. I'm saying that it's not bad, because the Companion is simply too big to really carry around like a sketch pad. If you think you'd want to carry it to the park, like they show in the promo videos, and do a 6 hour painting session... you can't, and you wouldn't want to anyway. It's mobile, but as mobile as lugging around a 15" heavy laptop. It's more of a nice portable workstation.... you can take it to places that you can plug in. If you want something that we nowadays consider mobile, it should be something smaller and lighter than the size of an ipad.... You'd better off using the iPad with the Creative Stylus, or the Samsung Note line, as mentioned previously.

Cintiq Companion with Painter Lite

Heat

I was really concerned about heat before getting this. Every Tablet PC I've used, get hot. Drawing with a Tablet PC on your lap usually means dripping sweat onto the tablet. The Cintiq Companion barely gets warm. This largely because of the stand, you never really lay it on your lap to draw, and so it dissipates the heat nicely. The fan seems to be on often, but isn't loud. Of course, fan volume is subjective, I just don't notice it very much while I draw.

Buttons

The buttons are amazing, as with all Cintiqs. You can also set up onscreen buttons, which completely eliminates the need for Artdocks. And the customize-able physical buttons have nice tactile feel. You get spoiled with Cintiq buttons, and it's sometimes hard to go without them. Unfortunately, the round ring in the middle, are not touch scroll wheels like the ones on the bigger Cintiq's. They are 4 buttons with the windows button in the middle. However, the buttons are completely customize-able to whatever hot key you want, and with the conjunction with custom on screen buttons, you'll be able to work comfortably without a keyboard..... at least with programs that are designed to be simple for tablets, like Sketchbook or Painter. Even with these keys, I don't think you can get away using Photoshop, or zbrush etc. I think some programs are just too frustrating without a keyboard.

Speed and Power

No problems, even with very large canvas and big brushes in sketchbook. It has much less lag than ativ pro, when using large brushes. No complaints about CPU speed or memory, for the kind of art that I do, it's more than enough :) On Painter Lite, I don't notice any brush lag with big canvas etc. But I do notice when I have a lot of layers, that the zoom and rotate feel a little more chunky. Not something that prevents you from working, as the brushes always seem to retain their responsiveness, but just something that I've noticed. I don't use any of the more CPU or memory intensive programs, but have heard that it performs well on zbrush and Photoshop.

Design

The design and build quality of the Companion is amazing. The back looks and feel like a MacBook. The soft rubbery parts are easy to handle, have a nice grip to it. I especially love the lack of loud logos on the front of it. It's clean, and the Windows, and Wacom logo, are subtle and sophisticated. The large bezel around the screen may feel awkward compared to the minimal bezels of today, but it is actually a very welcoming thing for artists. It lets you rest your palms, making the best use of screen real estate. Wacom is known for drawing tablets, not computers, so it's a relief that this machine came out feeling so well made.

Palm rejection

Palm rejection works well, but it isn't perfect. You still sometimes draw with your palm or finger, but it happens less often than other Tablet PC's that I've used, running on the same programs. What works the best of palm rejection, is the Note 10.1's Sketchbook in "pen mode". That is because the android version of Sketchbook has the ability to turn off touch to draw, when you have a device with a stylus. You can touch to activate buttons, pinch zoom canvas etc, but never draw with your fingers. I've asked for that function in the android version a while back, and have now asked it for the desktop pc version, so hopefully Autodesk is listening, and can support soon!

Touch 

Pinch zoom in Sketchbook 6.2.3 is very smooth. But the pen needs to be a certain distance away from the screen before it starts recognizing the two finger touch. Hopefully with the above suggested pen mode, the software can be smarter about when the user wants to touch zoom. Pinch zoom in Painter Lite is not nearly as smooth as Sketchbook. I end up using the navigator buttons, rather than pinch zooming with Painter Lite. With multitouch, I've also set up gestures to bring up the soft keyboard when I do a 5 finger tap, which is useful when you need to save and name your work while working without a physical keyboard. For Sketchbook/Painter, I can work just fine without a keyabord/mouse.

So in the end, should you get this? if you've got the money and want the best portable drawing experience, it's a huge yes. With the amount the Wacom got right with the Companion, it's hard to complain about the few things that they did poorly here. For most people, it's outrages to spend this kind of money on a Tablet PC, especially when the Note 10.1+, or the iPad/Creative Stylus, cost much less. If you need something that is a general laptop that you can draw on, there is the Ativ Pro, Surface Pro, or other Tablet PC's out there. I get asked often, what is the best drawing device out there, and if you really want the best thing JUST for digital art, this is it. The only thing that may be better, are the bigger Cintiq's. Wacom knows art, but their products come at a premium price :(

Sketch using Cintiq Companion / Painter Lite

Pros:

-Silky smooth stylus, what you'd expect from a Cintiq

-Textured screen surface feels more like pencil and paper

-Great buttons and functions.

-Good size for art, powerful specs

-Stylus case and sleeve a nice plus

-Windows boots blazing fast (about 8 seconds)

-No bloat wear

Meh:

-Battery ~4 hours

-Stand has nice angles, but does not lock or cover the screen

Cons:

-Price is too high for most

-Power Button is too easily pressed

-Tinny speakers

-Toxic smell in the sleeve, until it airs out

Speed drawing of my wife and kids, using Cintiq Companion with Painter Lite

Cintiq Companion: http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/CintiqCompanion/en/

I should point out, that there is a more expensive 512GB version of this Cintiq Companion, as well as 2 Android versions, the Cintiq Companion Hybrid. The Hybrid versions are cheaper, and allows you to use it with a PC, or use the Android OS when mobile. Personally, I went for the cheaper Tablet PC version, and am very happy with that decision.

Software used for this review:  

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro ($60)
Corel Painter Lite ($50)