I think my Ctrl and Z keys are worn smooth from trying to get a line just right. It can be maddening when you need a long fluid line to have your tablets ice like surface skip your nib last minute completely borking up an otherwise perfect stroke. So, how do we fix it? Here are some tricks that I use.

Rotate your canvas.

Seems like a “Duh” moment, I know, until you get tin to the habit of using it, it’s very easy to overlook and find yourself cursing as you draw or paint.

 

In Photoshop simply hold your R key and move the pen or mouse and the canvas will rotate as seen in my screenshot. This makes getting those weird angles so much easier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Illustrator this is a little trickier as you cannot rotate the art board, but what I do is select everything (CTRL-A) on the board and then hold shift and rotate by grabbing a corner anchor while it is in rotate mode, or right click – transform – rotate enter your value. Shift is a little quicker. For whatever reason no matter how i capture the screen my pointer and indicators disappear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Painter 11 hold the Alt key and then spacebar to enable free rotation or simply choose the rotate tool by clicking and holding the hand icon to bring up the alternate tool choice for rotate.

Change your pen nib

Wacom sells various different types of nib refills for your pen. I have used the felt and can honestly say they do may a big difference. They also offer some flex nibs, which I have not tried that are supposed to offer more control as well as various other effects nibs. At $4.95 plus shipping what can it hurt to try?

Wacom nib refills

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use actual paper!

Another duh moment. You can simply cut a sheet of paper to the dimensions of your drawing surface and tape it down (or hold it with your hand to avoid tape marks). I have used up to a 2 ply illustration paper and suffered no ill effects on the pen registering, and if you do have issues try a thinner, lighter paper. This way you really are drawing on paper and the control is greatly increased. One caveat however; your plastic nibs will wear down quicker, but it’s not like they cost a fortune.

 

 

 

If you have other tricks, I’d love to hear them. Please feel free to leave a comment below.