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MillimeterShoot Review: Wacom Cintiq 21UX
Dec 1, 2006 12:00 PM, Reviewer: S.D. Katz
Versatile tablet provides enjoyable drawing experience.
I‘ve used Wacom tablets for more than a decade, but only as an adjunct to paper; while I have storyboarded using the Wacom, it is usually for the inking stage. Many artists, however, have completely switched to tablet drawing and painting in their work. It makes a lot of sense for concept art for commercials or movies, because our industry is based on bits, not paper. Even though many movie illustrators now work with a tablet input for a Mac or PC, there is something awkward about drawing on a tablet while watching the monitor.
Wacom’s Cintiq 21UX has a maximum resolution of 1600x1200 (UXGA) and a drawing surface of 17”x12.75”.
The Wacom Cintiq 21UX is the upgraded version of the 18SX TFT active matrix LCD input device, and it's the top of the Wacom line. When Wacom introduced the first Cintiq, the resolution was only XVGA, which was well below the resolution capability of stylus inputs at the time. If you were doing fine detail work or rotoscoping, the screen resolution was just not up to the task.
That was a few years ago, though, and both the screen resolution and pen sensitivity have since increased. The 21UX has a maximum resolution of 1600×1200 (UXGA), which is certainly good enough for most drawing and painting tasks. The pen resolution is much higher, so what you see is not as accurate as the pen. This is not really a problem because you can zoom in, so, at one-to-one viewing size, you don't feel short-changed by the size of the screen.
The Cintiq is a whopping 21"×16.5", with an active drawing surface of 17"×12.75". Slightly more than 2in. deep and 18.7lbs., it's light for an LCD panel, but not for an input tablet. In any case, you trade portability for the extra capability of drawing right on the screen.
The regular Wacom tablets such as Intuos (which range from 4"×5" to 12"×19") are thin and light, and they can be used in your lap as well as sitting on a desk. This way, if you have your computer set up for keyboard and mouse input as well as for the tablet, you don't have to clear extra space on your work area. While the Intuos and Cintiq tablets have buttons right on the tablet, you still end up using the keyboard for entering text in graphics, naming files, and even accessing hotkeys in graphics programs. Because you need a keyboard handy and the Cintiq is too big for your lap, you will need to find space for both on your desktop.
Another space-eater is the Cintiq's special stand, which has a spring-loaded mechanism to allow the 21UX to sit almost flat on the stand or be tilted over a range of 10 degrees to 65 degrees. The stand has a big benefit, however: The panel can be rotated around its center in the manner of an animation drawing table. This is important, because when you draw, you are turning the drawing surface constantly. This is particularly useful for inking because of the anatomy of the arm; the forearm rotates from the elbow.
As it turns out, the most comfortable freehand drawing motion for the forearm is about 45 degrees, with the low end of the gentle arc near the body and the high end further from the body. The arm can move reasonably well a few degrees on either side of this arc, so the range is approximately 30 degrees to 60 degrees, but that's about it. Drawing outside this range requires rotating the torso relative to the table, and even then your coordination drops off quickly. Usually, artists just rotate the paper they are drawing on, but with non-LCD input tablets, the display doesn't rotate with the input surface. The Cintiq goes a long way in solving this problem, because the whole unit pivots in the stand. You can rotate the screen 180 degrees, which means you can use the LCD and drawing surface in portrait mode if necessary.
The experience
The response time of the pen and tablet together is more or less seamless; I did not find that there was any lag between the pen and screen, and I set the 21UX up on a dual-processor G4 — certainly not the fastest system available. To draw, I set the Cintiq flat on the desk. This raised two issues: First, ambient light was a problem. When painting, you definitely don't want screen reflection — and you get a lot of it when the screen is facing up. The Cintiq works best in a dark room.
Second, it made me realize I needed a new chair: Even when set flat (although it's actually a slight incline), the stand raises the Cintiq's surface between 3in. and 5in. above the desk. My chair doesn't go high enough for me to lean over the Cintiq at a good drawing angle, so if I were actually going to buy a Cintiq, I'd have to add in the price of a chair.
The Cintiq and stylus provide the typical Wacom drawing experience of skating on ice. In other words, the stylus moves smoothly over the surface, which takes some getting used to if you are accustomed to natural materials.
I set up the Cintiq with Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk SketchBook Pro, the second of which is a great combo. Sure, Photoshop is excellent for drawing, but the Cintiq's directness and SketchBook's emphasis on workflow make for a very enjoyable drawing experience.
The Cintiq is great for tracing, but I did notice that you have to keep the pen close to vertical when selecting tools such as the Paint Brush or other tools in Photoshop. Once you get going, though, it's very cool. When I set up SketchBook Pro, it took some discipline to stop drawing to write this review — it's that much fun.
One fundamental limitation of the Cintiq is that the active drawing surface is above the LCD panel. This produces a minor perceptual disconnect, because you are viewing the screen at an angle while the pen is activating the screen directly below the stylus. This is not a problem for sketching, but it is definitely a drawback where a great deal of precision is required — for example, inking art or rotoscoping. Practice may help, and, of course, you can always zoom in on an area, which improves precision. My line work tends to be loose, so this is not a problem. For anyone doing precision work, however, a test drive makes sense before dropping the big bucks for a Cintiq.
The screen
Forgetting the tablet capabilities for a moment, the Cintiq has an above-average LCD monitor, but it definitely does not have the highest contrast (550:1) or brightness (250cd/m
Onboard controls
The Cintiq sports all the new onboard controls that debuted with the Intuos, including programmable ExpressKeys and Touch Strips. These have been reviewed in millimeter before (see digitalcontentproducer.com/videoedsys/revfeat/video_future_mice_2), so I will only briefly mention them here. A pair of identical controls are available left and right of the active drawing area. ExpressKeys operate like modifier keys on the keyboard, such as Command or Alt in OS X or Control in Windows. You can customize the keys — for example, to imitate the bracket keys in Photoshop that are used to change brush size. Similarly, the Touch Strips emulate mouse and keyboard options such as zooming or scrolling. These are the default actions but can be customized. These are quite useful: Because I use a pen tablet with Photoshop and SketchBook Pro, I programmed a few of the keys I use the most. Once you get the hang of it, you can develop a reasonably fast drawing and painting workflow.
Setup
It takes about 30 minutes to unpack and set up the Cintiq for basic operation. To program the keys and customize stylus action and performance, you have to access the Wacom Tablet Properties. Here you will find Tilt Sensitivity for the pen, along with tip feel and other refinements. The documentation is clear, but you may want to take some time to test the results of different settings.
One very important setup task is to calibrate the stylus so that the screen cursor and the pen tip are perfectly aligned. The software walks you through an alignment process using crosshairs on the screen. This will take no more than a few minutes and you're ready to go.
Conclusion
Like all the other Wacom tablets I have owned, this is a well-made product with good documentation and software. The specs of the Cintiq's LCD screen are about average if you are measuring lag time, brightness, or contrast. While there are better monitors on the market in this price range, they are just monitors — not interactive input devices. If I could change anything on this product (besides the price), it would be the distance from the active input surface to the actual display. This would make the Cintiq far better for detailed work. A higher-resolution screen would be my second request. Still, drawing on the Cintiq is a great experience, and for full-time digital illustrators, this is a product worth serious consideration.
bottomline
Company: Wacom
Vancouver, Wash.; (800) 922-9348
www.wacom.com
Product: Cintiq 21UX
Assets: For Mac and Windows, great drawing experience, good combination with Autodesk SketchBook Pro.
Caveats: Average LCD screen, tricky for detail work, pretty pricey.
Demographic: Full-time digital illustrators.
PRICE: $2,499
S.D. Katz is a New York-based writer/director and author of the best-selling books Shot by Shot and Cinematic Motion.
To comment on this article, email the Digital Content Producer editorial staff at dcpfeedback@prismb2b.com.
