Penciling the Achoris columns on Wacom's Companion tablet PC in the Small Amun Temple at Medinet Habu

If you haven’t read our entry about digital fieldwork and the Survey's adventure with the Wacom Companion tablet PC, you can do so by clicking here!⠀

The first potential solution to fulfill the need for a high powered, high resolution portable graphic tablet was provided by Wacom Co., Ltd. in 2013, shortly after the first edition of the Digital Epigraphy manual was released. In the following three years, the Epigraphic Survey extensively tested these machines on numerous different projects, assessing their advantages and shortcomings for digital drawing fieldwork.⠀ ⠀

The Wacom Cintiq Companion, the first iteration of Wacom's current MobileStudio Pro lineup, is a Windows tablet with a 13.3-inch high-resolution display and Wacom’s well-known touchscreen/stylus combo with the same 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity as its larger siblings, such as the previously discussed Cintiq 22HD. Since the Cintiq Companion is a fully-fledged Windows PC, it allows the artist to take a full version of the Photoshop software to the field. Therefore, one can set up a drawing canvas with all the necessary layers in the Survey's publishing resolution (1200 dpi) and file format (TIFF), and work with it in the same software environment using the same hardware from the first digital pencil strokes to its final, inked iteration.⠀ ⠀

I have two remarks to the photo showing my back as penciling my way through the Achoris columns on the Wacom Companion in the Small Amun Temple at Medinet Habu. First, we had to design a custom drawing board to accommodate the tablet and to give me enough elbow room when crafting fine curved lines. Second, check out the wooden stand my Wacom is hooked up to: it is an easel made in the Fifties! ⠀ ⠀

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