CG-Hub

I have travelled about 5 kilometers by car and another 35 kilometers by train, and now I’m walking. Google says I have travelled almost the exact marathon distance. One way. This is what you get when you’re on the country and you suddenly need something urgent. But now I’m almost there.

The water, my shoes and me enter the shop. Like all the other shops of it’s kind, it looks all poncy, white and hightechy and is stuffed with the latest Macs and iPhone cases and whatnot – one of those shops, you know? Just the right place for me now.
I need to buy myself a Bamboo Pen Tablet, and I buy it because I’m stupid. Well, there is nothing stupid about purchasing a Bamboo Pen Tablet per se. It’s my fifth Wacom in about nine years. All of them still work. I just keep buying them. I have to.

My first tablet ever was a Graphire 2. I bought it because my mouse was broken, and I thought “Why not give it a try?”. I made myself a pen setup that seemed logical for me at the time. However, this setup was so insanely bad that my hand started to hurt after just 20 minutes of working. After a couple of days I gave up. I ditched the pen and continued to work with the mouse that came with the tablet for almost 2 years.
It was up to a friend who had to show me a proper setup. What a revelation! I was hooked.

The good old Graphire helped me through the first years of my carrer as a digital artist. It’s really run down by now, but it still works. However, at the moment it’s stored in one of the boxes from one of the many moves I made in the last few years, and I just can’t find it.
The second one, an Intuos 3, was a huge leap ahead. After more than 5 years with the Graphire, I wanted to work on a larger surface, and I also wanted to have a fatter pen. When I was given my even larger Intuos 4 though, I happily gave the older Intuos to my girlfriend who was just starting out as a graphic designer. She still has it, I think, but sadly enough, I don’t have her anymore.
Anyhow, I take my current, large Intuos 4 almost anywhere I go, and I go lots of places. There’s always work to do, and I just can’t do it without my Wacom. I just can’t. It starts to take on a rugged look, because I never protect it well enough in my backpack. We’re going to be two old, worn out dogs one day, full of scratches and with some loose screws. I like that better than those squeaky clean things other artists work with, but maybe I’m just a lazy bummer and I try to pretend I’m all cool about it.

So the tablet always comes with me.
But that doggone pen doesn’t. It’s the third pen I lost within a single year.

Of course it’s the pen’s fault, not mine. They kinda – uh – jump out of my backpack or they dematerialize in front of my eyes, seriously. Or maybe I’m just a bummer who’s not just lazy, but also too stupid to look after his most important tools. (At least I don’t have a mobile phone. I’d be all broke if I had to replace the lost chargers every few weeks.)

So what can I do when I’m abroad, and I can’t wait to order a new pen, because I need to finish an illustration until, like, tomorrow? Which seems to always be the case when I lose my pen? I ask, what can I do?
I go out and buy new Wacoms. Those shops never, never have spare parts in stock. Like, say, extra pens. Smart guys.

I’m sitting at home now, the cute, brand new Bamboo sitting in front of me. I have it carefully covered in paper, so my penwork won’t lave any mark on the tabet’s surface, while I wait for another new pen to arrive which I’ve ordered through Wacoms eStore. When the pen arrives in a couple of days, I’m going to put my interim helper back into it’s original package…

… and then I could be all sneaky and hand the tablets back to the shops and get my money back. But I kinda feel bad about giving back products that actually work to my full satisfaction and help me meet my deadlines.

So, my dear friends, this is how I buy your birthday presents. Now you know. If you are my friend, and if you haven’t got a Wacom yet, just wait for a few more months. I know myself. You can rely on me.