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Thought I'd share a few pics of my current work space at my studio. It looks a little something like this.

I've got my trusty Lenovo Laptop to the left, and a Wacom Cintiq graphics tablet to my right which is attached to a Ergotron arm- this means I can keep the Cintiq in a floating position for general surfing and writing, then re-position and tilt it down onto on the desk. I have a custom large mouse mat for the desk to match the canvas I drew on the wall- the main reason is to stop the bottom of the tablet getting scratched or damaged on the desk when I push it in place. The black gel padded mouse mat supports my wrist.

I use 'Smudge guard 2' when working on the tablet to prevent smear and reduce friction and often wear a pair of crystal Gunnar glasses which provide a small degree of eye relief when staring at the screen all day.

Tech / Spec Summary:

• Lenovo Y500 15.6" Notebook:
• i7-3632QM 2.4GHz Processor
• 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 RAM
• NVIDIA GT650 Graphics
• 1x speedy 2TB Hard Drive for data, 1x 250GB Solid State Drive running Windows 10 Operating system
• An external 1TB 2.5" overflow drive for movies and less frequently used data, an external 5TB drive for backing up [Located at home]
• Ergotron LX Arm
• Cannon LiDE A4 scanner [Located at home]
• Epson Stylus 1500W A3+ Deskjet printer [Located at home]
• Wacom Cintiq 27QHD Touch Graphics Tablet
• Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 6000
• Logitech 2.1 Speakers
• Additional Web Cam: Microsoft LifeCam HD-3000 [Not in photo]
• The mounted Microphone is a Samson C01U

My Laptop is now 4 years old, and I'd usually consider upgrading it after this amount of time, but I'm finding it hard to find something drastically better for an affordable price. Anyone use a Mac Book pro? I've seen a similar spec model to my current laptop, be it with a better resolution screen, but it's 3 times the price. I couldn't imagine the upgrade being worth it. I'll no-doubt stick with what I have for a few more years to come then reassess my options. As much as I hate Microsoft, I'm familiar with Windows OS on a pretty deep level, so will likely stick with it also. And does anyone own an A3 size scanner? I'd like one but they are so expensive compared to A4. Other than that I'm pretty content with my current set up.

If anyone wants a non-bias opinion on any aspect of the above tech or set-up, leave a message and I'll add a follow-up comment :)

Cintiq Girl finally finished :)

In May I was working at the Wacom stand at the MCM comic expo in London. I created 'Cintiq girl' especially for the event and spent most of my time there demonstrating the new Cintiq 13HD graphics tablet screen combo, which was pretty cool!

On the Friday I tried out Manga Studio 4 (Now known as Clip Studio) to digital ink her. It seemed like an ok program, but not sure I’d use it again and I couldn’t figure out if there’s a way to create anti-aliased lines? I then spent the weekend working on the colours in Photoshop CS6 in between chatting to customers, but still needed a day to finish after I got back.

Also wanted to see how my new laptop handles large Photoshop files. This one is about 1.5GB! (this image is 6% actual size) and it seemed fine for everything other than smudge tool.

Thanks for checking it out!

WIP- 85% complete and it’s been sitting on my hard drive in this state for weeks. Perhaps another 3 hours and I’ll be done with the colouring- just need to find the time.