The baby Jesus would giggle and clap his hands if you did. And you could tape it!

Buffista artists, I'm thinking of buying a first graphic tablet for a preteenager. (He's 11, old enough not to break things, and he does a lot of drawing on paper and gets frustrated.) I've heard good things about the Wacom Graphire3. How's this? [link] What would you suggest as a first tool?

I know that, as a writer, I was never really happy until I could edit endlessly; I couldn't write without a wordprocessor. It occurs to me that the right digital tools might do the same thing for an artist.

I know that, as a writer, I was never really happy until I could edit endlessly; I couldn't write without a wordprocessor. It occurs to me that the right digital tools might do the same thing for an artist.

Hell no. It's not at all the same thing.

Much as I love my tablet, I wouldn't recommend one for someone who is still in the learning to draw process, as they're endlessly more frustrating (to me) than pencil and paper if I'm trying to do something from scratch.

If I'm doing something with the tablet, I usually start with a hand-done sketch, and use the tablet for fine-tuning/trying out different colors, but it's an enhancer, not a replacement, for traditional tools.

Do you use applications like Painter, PMM? I wonder if it might be a place to start with a tablet, especially for someone who doesn't have all our reflexes...

Me, I can't draw jack with a mouse. Or colour. But I can outline and colour (yet not draw) with my tablet.

Do you use applications like Painter, PMM? I wonder if it might be a place to start with a tablet, especially for someone who doesn't have all our reflexes...

Yep. I'm exceedingly fond of Painter, and prefer it if I'm doing something on the tablet alone (which I occasionally do as a result of being stubborn). Well, or did before my USB hub broke. Occurs to me I should replace that.

Oh, you so need to buy that. I bought a non-tivo hard drive recorder / dvd recorder, and it's fucking great. It would be so much better if it were my tivo instead. As it is, I spend a good bit of time dumping data at achingly slow real-time speeds from one hard drive to the other. Even so? Fan-freaking-tastic.

You should buy it.

(the non-tivo hdr/dvdr turned out to be only region-free hackable, and not currently macrovision hackable. Which bites.)

What sort of drawing tools does he have?

Pencils? Charcoal? Pastels?

He may find a different medium more satisfying.

And really lovely drawing paper. . . good erasers. . . perhaps some nice aquarelles. . .

Daniel, are you lurking around here tonight? If you have IM pop on, my contacts are in my profile.

That TiVo is SOOOOOO tempting.

Sadly, any friends that I might be able to sell my current TiVo to, I've already converted to the wisdom of TiVolove, and they already HAVE them.