Yesterday I finally got my long awaited Bamboo Manga. I had been waiting for this day very intently. As soon as it arrived I was eager to play with it. Like with many electronic items I had to input the drivers and programs, which was actually rather easy and did not take too long. The only thing I could complain about right away is that I could not use the tutorial at all, I even reinstalled both the Bamboo drivers/programs and also the Adobe applications (which are needed to use the wacom programs). Despite that I did not seem to have any problems at all. There are some preinstalled games in a little application named Bamboo dock (which starts automatically), the games help first time users to get a feel for the pen and the tablet. After all, most people who use such a system for the first time may have a bit of a learning curve at the beggining since it is quite different looking at the computer screen instead of looking down where you would normally be drawing.

There are also some simple drawing programs that can be used. Sure, they are simple but even so, just by seeing how much I could do with just that was amazing.

I know it kinda sucks, but this was my first try at drawing without practicing beforehand. It was made using a picture of “the Mona Lisa” as the background.

You may laugh but please, not too hard.

After finishing installing the programs and playing around with the settings for a couple of minutes I began to draw a couple of things (just figures and lines, as well as playing with the brushes). Eventually when I sort of got the feel for it, I began to draw on Open Canvas Lite (so far I like it more than Corel Painter). Here is the picture below.

When I finish my Yakumo drawing I’ll post it up (Yakumo is my favorite female character on School Rumble by the way, well alongside Eri).

I was actually surprised I would start getting the hang of drawing on the tablet so fast. There are some movements one has to beware of (otherwise the lines one would normally want will be too long, since te tablet is smaller than a normal piece of paper). Other than that it is just like drawing on paper, there are the obvious advantages of course. Like clean erasing and so on. Plus, one can save a lot of money this way as well (not having the need to buy more paint, markers, pencils, etc.) So far I really like it.

[EDIT] 12/22/12

About a year ago I did a quick report of what I thought about my new Bamboo Manga. The reason being that I seriously could not find much information about it online except for the little information Wacom provided on their website. That information was not enough though. And judging by the amounts of visits I get to my page because of this post in question, I assume it is the same for the rest of you.

I had to think quite hard of whether I should buy it or not, in the end I did. Was it worth it? It surprisingly was, it was so responsive I was actually really surprised. But of course there are some aspects that one has to get used to of course, such as looking up at the computer screen instead of looking down at your hands while drawing (this was the most challenging aspect I had to go through at the beggining). But luckily we as humans are capable of adjusting, so with practice this feeling does go away.

This video does not go in great depth, but it does provide some more information about the Bamboo Manga. I left out installation processes, as well as some real tests to see just how much one can bring out of the tablet. But the artwork in the box does give one a glimpse of what is possible if one practices dilligently enough. If you, the viewer, ask me to go into even more details about how to customize the button options, go through the installation and setup process I might consider it. But this should be a good amount of information for now.

If you happen to have any more questions go right ahead and ask.

Till next time

-XERO