Testing out Wacom's portable digital canvas, called Companion for the first time at Medinet Habu

The first potential solution to fulfill the need for a high powered, high resolution portable graphic tablet was provided by Wacom (@wacom) in 2013, shortly after the first edition of the Digital Epigraphy manual was released. In the following 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’s current iteration, called MobileStudio Pro 16, is a Windows tablet with a 15.6-inch 4K resolution display. It is essentially a standalone variant of Wacom’s well-known touchscreen/stylus combo, rocking the same 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity as its less portable sibling, the Cintiq Pro 16. ⠀ ⠀

Since the Cintiq MobileStudio Pro 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 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.⠀ ⠀

If you’d like to know more about how we use portable Wacom devices in the field, read on by clicking here.

This post was originally released as part of digitalEPIGRAPHY's growing Instagram collection. If you'd like to see our latest photos as soon as we post them, please follow us on Instagram.

What to see next