I had a wonderful opportunity to work with Sean Ong on a fun project. Sean Ong has a YouTube channel where he reviews tech and offers tips and tricks for the Microsoft Surface. Sean is an enthusiastic YouTuber that is sure to get anyone watching his videos excited about the devices he works with. His reviews are engaging and easy to follow. It was a pleasure working with him.
I reached out to Sean offering my services after finding his listing asking for help with his latest video project. Sean needed to demonstrate the capabilities of the Surface Pro 4 and Digitizer Pen in the hands of a digital artist. We agreed to meet and record a digital painting session using Photoshop.
See an awesome painting created in Photoshop on the Surface Pro 4! In this video, I show the SP4 Pen in action! Some call it a digitizer and others call it a stylus, but this pen is truly amazing.
I have been working with Wacom Intuos Tablets since I first started working digitally and have not had a chance to really work with other digital painting tools. I have recently been considering investing in a tablet in the future to work with my clients away from home. Naturally, I was eager to try out the Surface Pro 4 and digitizer pen to see if this set up might work for my business and personal needs.
The first thing I noticed while using the Digitizer Pen was that the pressure sensitivity exceeded my expectations. I began painting as I normally would and expected to have problems with resting my hand on the touch screen. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not an issue. The biggest obstacle seemed to be working around my personal workflow habits. I normally have my Intuos tablet buttons set up with specific hotkeys such as, undo, the brush tool, and the eyedropper tool. It took me a little while to get into the new workflow set up, but with a little time I can easily see myself getting comfortable and adjusting my workflow accordingly.
The only time I noticed any accuracy problems with the pen point was while using the eyedropper tool to select colors. You will see in the video that I often select the wrong color and continue painting thinking that I have the correct color selected. This resulted in some muddy looking parts in my blending techniques. I feel if I had more time to dedicate to playing with this set up I may have been able find a work around. The next hurdle I noticed was that the accuracy with the eraser end of the pen was less accurate than the pen tip. I loved the feel of eraser because it had the rubbery grip of a real eraser but the accuracy was just not where I needed it to be to use efficiently. I opted to use the pen tip switching between the brush tool and eraser tool.
This is the peice I completed for Sean during the digital painting session..
Over all, I had a very positive experience with the Surface Pro 4 and Digitizer Pen. I told Sean that I was even considering investing in this set up when I am ready to purchase a tablet. I want to thank Sean for having me. It was a pleasure working with him I encourage everyone to check out his YouTube channel and subscribe to catch all of his latest videos.