A question of Styl(i).
Categories: artwork
Date: 02 July 2013 07:35:35
More often than not the question I'm asked first about drawing on tablets is to do with the stick I'm pressing against the screen rather than the app or the device. Which interests me and puts paid to one of the Steve-isms about tablets (that a stylus would be a sign of failure*).
So here, drawn on iPad 2 and using DrawQuest app (which I like a LOT, a fab, fun app with a lovely community that seemed to spring up almost immediately) are some of the styli I like to use.
In order of seeing in the quilt they are the three Nomads: the Flex, Compose and Play. All excellent - the Compose if my favourite of the three. The New Trent fabric and pen stylus, which I like partially because it has a pen on and I'm always looking around for one of them, the Dagi 501 which a school kid broke once when I did a tablet art visit but remember very fondly. The Pogo Connect which I like more out of the two blue tooth connected styli that I have. The Jot Pro - which I like but has lost the connection in the ball joint through overuse which results in the disc flopping around the place helplessly, the Jot Touch V2 which, to be frank, I found a HUGE disappointment. Then the Pogo Sketch Pro which I love a lot but the tip is fragile as flip, like a glass dip pen (but it is replaceable so I treat it with care and respect - it's a lovely stylus to hold and use). Last ones are the Stylus Sock by Ivo Beckers on Etsy, Plai's eStylo (one of the more unusual on the list as it's made of wood (well, so is the Nomad Play a little but the connecting area is wood) and subsequently is very light and tactile. By contrast the final stylus is Studio Neat's Cosmonaut which is not light not graceful but is a single slab of stylus :)
All very different. All very interesting in their own ways and none I'm unhappy to use. Well. The eStylo I was a couple of years ago as it was, to my mind, a failed Kickstarter campaign and the v1.1 stylus was all but unusable. The version I've recently been sent as a replacement (v1.9) is miles better and has become the pencil of today that was the original premise.
There's a good many others I could have drawn (and have in the past but a lot of new ones too) - the SPen for a start which on a Samsung device I love, the Sony pen which works so well with the Vaio Duo, the eKit brush and so on, but the pictures above were the ones which came to mind.
Ahhhh but which stylus or styli did I use to draw it? If I only had to choose one? Personally I like to hold three in my hand for any picture if the choice of having the pencil case of all of them isn't there: the Stylus Sock, the Sketch Pro and the Nomad Compose short hair version. They're my three go-to styli and I love each equally.