Review: Wacom Inkling

As an illustrator who works in both paper and digital media, I've been looking forward to getting my hands on the Wacom Inkling ever since it was first announced. A physical pen that tracks your drawings and digitizes them on the fly? Can you say "dream tool?"

The Inkling is a two-part gadget, a pen and a receiver. As you draw with the pen, the receiver stays clamped to the top of your notebook where it records your every stroke. Later, you can load up the digital version of your drawing on the computer and do whatever you'd like with it.

Both the pen and receiver run on rechargeable batteries, and you get about eight hours of drawing time from a full charge. The the pen and receiver both fit into a carrying case, where they charge simultaneously (three hours to fill it up) over a single USB connection. The case is small and easy to stow, so you can take it anywhere and clamp it to practically any paper notebook or sketch pad. The device can store about 2GB of data, which the Wacom guys tell me is literally "thousands of sketches."

The Inkling is very smart. When you clip the receiver to your notebook, it automatically creates a new file, so you don't have to worry about drawing over previous works. The device also lets you create multiple layers on a single drawing. To start a new layer, just press a button on top of the receiver.

I found this extremely useful. I was able to incorporate the layering feature into my normal drawing workflow very naturally – lay down a basic sketch first, make a new layer, work on some details, make a new layer, add shadows, new layer, and so on.

The layers also came in handy if I wasn't sure when to stop on a drawing. Sometimes I overdo my inks. With the ability to add new layers, I could just move on and continue working normally. When I'm done and I've transferred the drawing to my computer, if I find I did too much, I can just erase any of the layers I didn't like.

The transfer process is easy, exporting the drawings requires you to install a bit of proprietary Wacom software on your Mac or Windows PC. You can generate 600dpi layered files for Photoshop or Illustrator (CS3 and later), or Sketchbook Pro (2011 or later). Flat files can also be saved in all the expected image formats (JPG, TIFF, SVG, PDF) for use in any other application.

Once you open up a drawing on a PC, it's pretty clear the Inkling works best for sketching, concepting and storyboarding rather than creating finished products.

The line work in my digitized drawings wasn't perfect – don't expect the digital version of your paper drawing to look like it was imported on a scanner. The processing is adequate, but it's not quite there yet.

Smaller details get lost, and lines aren't always in the right place. And if you happen to bump the receiver with your hand or draw too close to it (within an inch), you'll gunk up the results. It uses infrared and ultrasonic technology to track the pen tip, so line-of-sight obstructions (like fingers or straightedges) between the pen and the receiver can cause hiccups.

Wacom readily admits the Inkling is meant for roughing out ideas rather than creating perfect works of art. If you need 100-percent accuracy, the best option is still scanning.

The pen is very close to a the input pens you'd find on other Wacom devices, like its Intuos desktop tablets. While I appreciated working on honest-to-goodness paper, I wasn't too fond of the 1mm ballpoint pen tips in the kit. They're not horrible, but I would hope we'll eventually see some better tips for drawing. Also, while the Inkling is pressure-sensitive and can detect 1,024 levels of pen pressure (variations in line thickness show up in the digital output), it felt very standard while drawing. I would like to see the sensitivity increase so I can more accurately control the brush size.

Finally, here's a video showing one of the cooler features: the ability to "play back" your drawing after the fact to see how it evolved over time.

runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1453101489001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences();

WIRED Slick concept. Easy to use, intuitive. You can rotate the paper or work at any angle. A nice glimpse of what the future of Wacom might hold.

TIRED Accuracy of the digital translation has a way to go. Better for first drafts than finished works. Be careful not to bump it too hard – especially when pressing the "New Layer" button.