WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Welcome to Scribble Kibble, a show all about
animation.

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I’m opening up the smallest drawing tablet
I’ve ever used, about 8 by 8 in size, and

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the strangest thing about it is it’s flexible.

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Look at it bend!

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You can’t roll it up or anything, but it
is flexible.

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This is the Gaomon S56K.

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It is definitely a tablet for beginner digital
artists and you’ll see why soon.

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The packaging isn’t complicated.

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You get the tablet, the pen, manual and installation
CD, the tablet’s USB cable, a battery for

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the pen, and some pen tips.

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The pen is battery powered.

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Twist off the top, put the battery in plus
side up, twist back on.

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Press the button to turn the pen on.

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Press to turn off.

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To change the pen tips when they wear down,
use this metal ring to grab and pull.

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Then push in a new tip.

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Before you install the tablet you do need
to uninstall any old tablets before you can

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set up the S56K.

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If you have computer skills, you can get away
with having multiple tablets by switching

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out the wintab32 file.

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It’s best to not use the CD and instead
download the most recent driver for the S56K

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directly off of the Gaomon website.

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I don’t have the internet right now so I’m
going to risk using the CD to install the

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tablet.

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Surprise, it works fine.

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In Windows, you can change tablet settings
by clicking the icon in the system tray down

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here.

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You can program the two buttons on the pen
and adjust pen pressure.

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Remember to click apply or the changes won’t
update.

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The S56K worked in every art program I tested
it in, but it does much better in drawing

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programs than it does in animation programs,
specifically Toon Boom and Flash.

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Performance was the worst in Toon Boom.

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It is nearly impossible to draw a smooth line.

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Over in Flash, it’s hard to control pressure
sensitivity.

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Lines are suddenly thick or thin.

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It’s possible to animate of course, but
not with a professional degree of control

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over how each drawing looks.

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The tablet works a lot better in normal art
programs like SAI and Photoshop and free programs

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like Krita.

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Every so often you’ll get a blob when drawing.

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Just undo it.

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Overall, it’s not easy to make precise lines
with the S56K, not because of its small size,

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but because of its softer surface.

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Even in this sketchy painting, as soon as
I got down to details like the rings in the

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tree, I couldn’t get the pen to make the
movements I wanted it to.

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You can see how the rings turned out flat
instead of curving around the tree.

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Instead of fleshing out the painting, I decided
to try some character art to see how the tablet

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handled outlines that needed to be accurate.

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You can see how wobbly the line is due to
the tablet’s surface.

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Photoshop doesn’t handle lines well, but
SAI was fine.

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Even so, the S56K lines aren’t as pure as
they would be if made with another tablet.

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But you can’t really beat the price.

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If you’re looking for a cheap, portable
tablet to try out digital art, this may be

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your new best friend.

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You can definitely make art on it like this;
just don’t expect to have the type of precision

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you’ll get out of tablets that cost three
times as much.

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One more kind of funny thing.

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The S56K makes a distinctive squeaky sound
at the beginning of each stroke.

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My microphone didn’t capture it well, but
here are some squeaks.

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For more product reviews, see the new category
on the Scribble Kibble website.