hi,
-Evan
I have the smallest wacom intous 3. I wanted a larger one but circut city had them on sale and bought one as an impulse. I could not function without it when its comes to drawing. For 3d I find myself using both mouse and pen depending on what i want to do.
I would not trade my tablet even for a bigger one. I love it. All I want now is the wacom airbrush.
Great stuff…thats exactly what i needed to hear about wacom tablets and pen’s 
Thx;)
I just got my Wacom Cintiq 21u - sitting in front of me, still drooling, touching, can’t believe the beauty. 
Really, really brings Zbrush to life, heck any app including animation systems, just amazing!
Get one.
Scott does a pretty good right up over on http://www.highend3d.com
It’s in my top ten best-investments-ever-made, for sure. Probably top five, even. (where it fits next to my digital piano, or ZBrush itself, I’m less confident about. time will tell…)
I kvetched over a sale price on Graphire, after reading all the glowing reviews on Intuos. But, after reading what 3D masters around here have to say about using 4x5 anything, I’m red to admit I got the Intuos3 4x5…
I’m glad to read it can be used well enough for 3D; it’s my first tablet-- a trial intended for taking Photoshop to more painterly places. My abused arm muscles should stop throbbing, too, after all-nighters with the mouse.
I stumbled onto ZBrush from CGTalk.com-- now the pen and ZB2 go up the learning curve together! ZBC rocks: thanks for the collected brainstreams!
Any size wacom is an improvement over the mouse. Unlike some other items I bought for my computer including software, I never once said I wish I had the bigger Intous. I use it naturaly now almost unthinking, but I still find myself doing something that make me say my Intous3 4x5 is the best thing ever!
This statement makes my woman jealous. So i know it is true!
Well several of us have used or acquired the Wacom 21u Cintiq monitor/tablet and let me just say the emails are flying. The term greatest tool ever is not going to get shot down. Yeah I know the price, but believe me the motions, and speed are awe inspiring. I think I’ll go buy stock in Wacom now.
If you get a chance, seriously try one of these new tablets. You will be very impressed with any form of painting, sculpting and even animating. I ran into a guy a few days ago that uses the Cinitiq for music development, was amazing to watch - he’s had his for 3 months.
You really have to think about a tablet in the long term because unlike HD’s, CPU’s, GPU’s and just about any other peripheral you buy, a tablet will be just as good and useful in 10 years as the day you buy it.
Which is why I’d say do not get less than A4 size. Eventually you’ll want to be creating textures with 1:1 brush strokes. When you factor in the life span of a Tablet the extra cost for a big one is negligible. In the old days the larger tablets were extremely expensive, these days the difference in price between a 6x8 and an A4 makes the 6x8 very bad value.
$0.02
The bigger the tablet, the tougher it is to arrange your workspace for proper ergonomics. For my Cintiq, I ended up throwing away the computer desk entirely. Still not 100% satisfied that I’ve found the right layout, but it’s getting closer (and TOTALLY worth the inconvenience).
LOL-- Jason, how quickly did the “Cintiq Calculator” estimate you’d pay for your li’l hottie?!
http://www.wacom.com/pb_analysis/index_enews.cfm
I’d like one of these calculators for all those clients who want fast&cheap!
=dp