This is Scribble Kibble, a weekly show about animation.
This episode takes a look at the Huion GT-191, also known as the Kamvas.
The GT-191 is a drawing tablet that lets you draw directly on the screen.
This type of tablet is much more expensive than a screenless USB tablet, however, the
Kamvas is inexpensive compared to its biggest competitor, the Wacom Cintiq.
The thing I like most about this particular Huion tablet is the price, because the quality
you get for what you pay is high.
Honestly the GT-191 works almost just as well as my Cintiq 27QHD Touch.
You do give up having any shortcut buttons on the tablet itself, but there are two shortcut
buttons on the pen.
You also give up a little bit of color quality.
I explain how to improve the default color settings later.
On the upside, even though the tablet is inexpensive, you actually get more pressure sensitivity
than leading competitors: 8,000 levels compared to 2,000.
The difference in real life is subtle, but it’s there.
Lines are smoother and more precise, and you’ll notice greater control over stroke thickness.
It actually feels a lot like drawing on paper thanks to the screen protector the tablet
comes with, which is a bit thicker and has more texture to it than a normal glossy protector.
Which brings me to the second great thing about the GT-191: it comes with everything.
You buy it, you get a screen protector, a nice adjustable stand, and sometimes even
a smudge guard artist glove and an extra pen.
The largest Wacom display tablet requires you to order a $400 stand separately if you
don’t want to hunch over the tablet and get sharp back and neck pain.
It’s not like I’m speaking from experience or anything, haha… ha…
:( The Wacom also doesn’t come with a screen protector - and that’ll cost you about $50
- although the glass is very sturdy and doesn’t scratch.
I’d like to know if the Huion glass is as scratch-proof, but I’m not about to take
my cat’s claws to it to find out.
The point is with the GT-191, you get everything you need.
No ordering extra parts.
But make sure to install the drivers from the website, not from the CD that comes with
the tablet.
That’s true for any tablet though.
The drawing area itself is a good size.
Not too big, not too small.
The tablet is a medium weight, making it easy to move around but sturdy enough to stay still.
The rubber grip on the bottom keeps it from sliding away from you.
It is big enough that it’s not easy to transport, so don’t think you’re going to buy this
and be traveling all over the place with it.
Now, the number one weakness of the GT-191 is its colors.
When you first turn the tablet on you will immediately notice it looks washed out compared
to your computer monitor.
That’s because the default color settings on the tablet screen are awful.
You can mess with the color settings on the GT-191 all you like; no matter what you do
you won’t be able to get the colors as vibrant as your monitor, but you can get fairly close.
The best thing to do is turn brightness down to about 20, then go to Color Temperature,
set it to User, and slightly adjust the red value up or down.
These settings are as close as I could get to my computer monitor settings.
The colors on the GT-191 are clearer if you remove the screen protector, which means if
you want the most accurate colors possible on this tablet, consider buying a screen protector
from a company that specializes in protectors.
If you decide to do that you’ll lose the paper feeling to drawing on the screen.
The tablet can be a bit picky about where you are holding your pen and where the cursor
is.
Default out of the box was great.
I did the pen calibration for a tutorial and it was a tiny bit off after that.
I calibrated it again and that fixed it.
With the pen cursor, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it!
Now it’s time for the program test.
The GT-191 works in every program I tested it in.
Although, I had quite an adventure getting it to work in animation programs like Adobe
Animate and Toon Boom because of something dumb I did.
See, the Huion tablet driver comes with the default setting of pen button two to be “Switch
Brush.”
What this seems to do is switch whatever tool you are using to the eraser.
So… after I installed the tablet, I must’ve pressed that pen button, and then switched
the action for that button to be CTRL+Z.
After that, no matter what I did, every tool in animation programs was the eraser.
Photoshop and SAI and even MS Paint worked fine, but everything else?
Eraser.
I even uninstalled and reinstalled the tablet and kept having the problem.
So I wrote to customer support because I wanted to see if the tablet was supposed to be compatible
with these programs.
Huion suggested I reset the default pen settings and then press the second pen button, the
“Switch Brush” button.
Surely it can’t be that simple.
Surely.
Oh.
So, the GT-191 works in all of these programs and more!
All that’s left to do is finish my drawing here.
I was going to make an animation, but that doesn’t make a good video thumbnail, and
everybody’s already drawn people, so here’s your cute animal for the day!
By the way, sometimes you ask me, “How much did they pay you to say this?”
The answer to that is nothing!
I say whatever I want.
Popcorn.
Will Smith.
Slovakia.
For more product reviews, check the product review section on the Scribble Kibble website.