Meet the Creatives: Emmanuelle Walker
Award-winning illustrator and animator gives the lowdown on the Wacom Cintiq 16.
We’re delighted to announce that our judge and creative pro for the Wacom #Dare2Create competition is Emmanuelle Walker!
Emmanuelle is an animation director and illustrator based in London. She studied 2D animation at the CVM in Montreal, and specialized in 2D and 3D film direction at Gobelins, l’école de l’image, in Paris.
To judge your entries into the Wacom #Dare2Create competition, she’ll be putting all her knowledge from 18 years of freelancing in 2D animation, motion design, visual development and direction to use! Want your work to be judged by Emmanuelle? Enter now.
Emmanuelle is a longtime Wacom user, and has created most of her incredible portfolio of work on her trusty Wacom Cintiq 22. To give you the lowdown on the Wacom Cintiq 16, so you can see what you’re in for if you win, we sent Emmanuelle a Cintiq 16 to put through its paces. Here’s what she had to say.
‘Overall the Cintiq 16 is a fantastic tablet. As a professional illustrator and animator I have tried quite a few models of Cintiq in the past, I have owned one that lasted 10 years, so definitely a good investment.
When you manipulate it you can feel the great quality, the tablet is sturdy, sleek and the pen is solid and comfortable with two buttons and an eraser at the other end (that I don’t personally use, but it works fine in Photoshop).
Let’s talk about the size! I used to own a Cintiq 13 to take with me when I travelled. The 16 is lighter and the three extra inches make a big difference in terms of comfort when drawing. I found it also very comfortable to draw sitting back on my chair with the Cintiq on my lap — The unique cable makes it also very mobile, easy to move around. I understand that adding a stand offers more possibilities in terms of angles, I have one on my bigger Cintiq 22 and it’s super easy to adjust and it has close to a 90 degree range.
I’d say this Cintiq 16 is a must have for people who want to draw away from their studio. Perfect for freelancers who want to work from anywhere in the world. I personally prefer to work on a slightly bigger surface — I own a 22 at the moment but it’s not portable at all, so I will definitely take this one with me when I go abroad
The matte anti-glare Screen texture is perfect to the touch, the sensation under the pen tip is very pleasant, not too grippy, but not too slippery either. It conveys great resistance. Even on a warm day, my hand doesn’t stick on it while I draw, but if it does it’s easy to get one of those photographer gloves and cut the three middle fingers out.
My studio space is very light so I had to adjust the brightness levels and contrast to the max and reflections on screen are not an issue at all! I feel like the colours are not 100% true, but it’s also very easy to double check on the calibrated computer screen with a colour navigation window.
I personally work on images with very small details, and it works fine given the size of the tablet. The Pro version I have tried in the past has a higher resolution (4K) which allows you to see more details without zooming in that much but I wouldn’t say this is a massive issue. I just used the zoom a little more (it’s also nicer for the eyes)!
And finally, let’s also mention the fact that it is extremely easy to set up. Five minutes and I was ready to draw (on a Mac anyway and given you have an HDMI USB adapter).
I would definitely recommend the Cintiq 16. Perfect for students, or animators and as a second more portable tablet for more established professionals’
