Huion GT-191 review

by on July 27, 2017 at 9:15 pm
Posted In: Artwork, Reviews

Well, I didn’t think I’d go and do this but I grabbed a new art tablet to see if it’d help me be more productive. Stranger yet I’m deciding to write a review on this! This isn’t paid or whatever I got this with my own money after I got showed a review or two from friends.

Color me impressed. For what many call a ‘clone’ this tablet really is impressing me. It has everything you need to get it started and some extras the competition should be including. You get TWO pens, and the battery lasts up to a week before it needs to be recharged, a pen-stand for that has 8 replacement nibs hidden away. You get a metal stand included, this sounds like “well duh you do” but sadly the competition isn’t including one and they want you to pay $100 for a plastic wonky one, also you get a tablet glove! That thing that makes your hand glide on tablets vs sticking to them.

The stand is excellent, there’s no preset adjustment levels but it does lock into place with a gear mechanism. This is really good for two reasons: 1- it will not give when you lean on your tablet, which was a major problem I had with the Wacom 12WX 2- It’s not limited by only a few positions like my old Surface Pro 2, you just reach over the top of your monitor, pull on the lever with a finger, adjust and let go and it locks into place. The downsides I could see are it gives the tablet a larger footprint and it makes the tablet a bit heavier. That said this is a tablet you should probably be having on your desk only and not a lap.

I honestly got this because I got teased by a lot of my friends and fellow comic artists for working on such a small tablet, my Surface Pro 4. So I had some store credit and decided to try this out while it was on sale. I was really nervous about it as I’m always hearing “There’s a trade off with the clone tablets”. Sure, maybe if you’re expecting a luxury tablet that’s got a metal chassis or whatever but this tablet has a glass screen, a ton of extras and feels sturdy.

I worked on a piece for a while, trying to get comfortable with it and it’s impressive to say the least. I don’t think the parallax (distance between the pen & screen) is bad, way better than my old Wacom 12WX…as is the color accuracy. I’ve worked on the Surface Pro 4 for a while which has very minimal parallax and I honestly didn’t have much trouble on here with the Huion tablet. That said there IS some to me it was only noticeable when you’re close to the tablet and your reaching on the edges of the tablet. Which makes sense as you’re going to be seeing more at the angle that would see between the glass & screen. When you get it, get comfy and position yourself as you would work and calibrate it to minimize it.

Other good news: there’s no hot spot on the face of the tablet, you know that spot where your hand would stick to or just start to get sweaty, none of that here.

The pressure range of 8k is really good and I noticed it was  higher than my Surface Pro 4’s 1k pressure range. That said I’m not so blown away that I feel the SP4’s pen is bad or unusable but there’s a difference. You have a solid range of control that’s to be certain but I think past a certain number you’re less and less likely to notice. Must be said, some may be turned away by the plastic pen on the glass screen (there is a textured screen protector but we’ll get to that and why it’s bad with my tips) and I’m fairly spoiled with my Surface’s pen tips giving me a range of 4 different feels as this only comes with 1 type of 8 nibs, smooth and plastic.

There are speakers in the unit, or rather my audio device manager registers there are. I haven’t tested them but I honestly haven’t seen a good set of speakers in a monitor/TV since the ol’ CRT days where they could fit larger drivers in there. I can’t give my 2 cents on that since I haven’t tried them but, this is an artist tablet and I’m focusing on that. Also, if you plug in your unit and notice the sound is gone? Go to your sound settings and reset it to your default audio device.

I tested it with Clip Studio Paint EX and I’m including a pic of the workspace & the piece I finished so you can suss out how it can work. I did one doodle before it and then straight to this from being used to my Surface Pro 4 so I didn’t have much of a learning curve to get on with this. I had no compatibility issues and had it working with the software instantly. Messed a bit with Photoshop and the pressure seems to work straight away. I don’t use photoshop much for the art end so I can’t say fully how well it works but when I made some brush strokes they worked fine enough.

As far as negatives, well the monitor is large and a bit heavier than you’d expect with a lot of modern ones really slimming them down. This monitor is a fat one, and the stand really makes the footprint of this device pretty big on your desk. This with the stand isn’t going to strain your muscles to move it about but I don’t think you’ll have this on your lap while you’re sat back in the chair either. The pen I’ve heard feels cheap, I’d say it feels very light and there’s no rubber like on the wacom ones so that might be where that feeling comes from. The screen protector that’s supposed to add a texture is worthless and really isn’t worth having on…When you use it, a rainbow effect appears as you’re wearing into it and it makes the tablet unusable. You simply can’t see what is going on under it, so stick with the glass, your plastic pen won’t hurt it but make sure you’re not wearing a watch or whatever.
The other thing is there’s no eraser on the pen’s butt, there’s two buttons which are programmable but it’s something you’ll either have to learn to live with or adapt if you’re gonna grab this.

Overall, if you’re looking for a tablet where you can work right on screen this is an excellent one to have pro or hobbyist alike. If you’re just starting out it has everything you need, especially for the cost. I’ve worked on Wacom products for years and the Surface Pro 2 and 4 for ages as well and this tablet impressed me. Thing to keep in mind, this is not a luxury tablet, it’s not ultra thin and light and it’s not made of an aluminum chassis, but it’s well built and I feel is worth the asking price. Especially considering I’ve spent far more on Wacom with their 12WX and was underwhelmed.

Included:
2x Pens
Pen stand + 8 replacement nibs
Adjustable stand
Screen cleaner
Screen Protector
Pen charger
USB cord for PC
HDMI cable

Inputs:
HDMI, DVI, VGA

Here’s some tips for setting the thing up since the youtube reviewers I’ve watched missed some things:

  • You need to calibrate the colors out of the box. Once you do the colors are really nice and the 1080P works nicely on this size monitor.
  • I would say remove the textured screen protector. Because the screen is glass your not going to do much harm to it with a plastic nib. I have a Surface Pro 4 which I’ve worked on for 2 years and without a screen protector. After all that time there’s no damage I can see on it. The screen protector on this thing has a texture to it to make it more like working on paper. The problem is it’s useless and ruins the experience, The colors are ruined with it because of the matte texture and as you use it, a rainbow effect appears as you use it. It’s really bad and isn’t something I think is worth the texture effect. I was genuinely struggling seeing my linework on the monitor till I removed it and it’s vastly better.
  • What the youtubers got wrong: They say the stand gets stuck on the cables, this really caught me as odd as the stand has a massive hole in it for you to put the cables through so it makes it impossible to put the stand on the cables in any way.
  • Be sure to NOT install the drivers off the CD, you’d be wasting your time. Go to the huion website and download the fully up to date drivers there.
  • There are no express keys, honestly I’m so used to a keyboard that this didn’t even register till I saw others complaining about it.
  • No touch interaction, this IS what got me since I’ve been working on a Surface Pro 4 using 2 fingers to rotate and zoom. That’s simply not here. Which is a shame but, something I’m getting used to again.
  • Wash the glass screen, there’s some form of residue that makes the pen kinda drag against it, but after a microfiber cloth+water wash over the glass it’s super smooth and nice.
  • Make sure you uninstall all other tablet drivers before using this.

My tablet history: (Unknown name brand), Wacom Graphire 2 & 3, Intous 2, Wacom 12WX, Surface Pro 2 w/ Wacom Bamboo Feel, Surface Pro 4, Huion GT-191

And hey, if you have any questions or want me to clarify something feel free to leave a comment and ask and I’ll answer as best I can.

-Mike G

Hiatus, hospital visits, jury duty and more.

by on June 22, 2017 at 7:32 pm
Posted In: Artwork, Life, Updates

Hey guys, sorry I’ve been so quiet recently. I’ve had a lot going on recently, more than usual …annoyingly. My friend Lu and me used to stream every Thursday but we’ve both been having some personal issues keeping us from doing our weekly streams.

First of all: Antares Complex as usual is on hiatus since an issue has completed! It’ll be resumed in 2-4 weeks where I can get caught up and some other things related to it done. Specifically I’d like to get my Patreon sorted to have things you’d guys want to get!

The TL:DR version: software issues, jury duty, work, hospital visits.

I had some software trouble on my Surface and tried ‘resetting windows’ which keeps all settings for software & the like but I was still having trouble. So had to a full on reinstall it and everything and get my Clip Studio Paint up to speed with settings. (Which is on sale, get it, GET IT!). Now things are running better than ever, pen feels much nicer than it did a few weeks ago. So that’s good just annoying it took so long to fix. I still have some software to get up and running so I can stream.

More fun, jury duty summons! Some of you know what I do and why this is a major problem. It had me plenty stressed out and thankfully after a full day of being dragged through the slow tar-like system that is the courts I got out of it thankfully so I can concentrate on helping my family who needs it right now. Thanks to my cousin Geo who helped me get there and back and the lawyers who were understanding enough to help out.

The hospital visits were for a family member and they are now doing fine, as good as they can be. I don’t want to bore you guys with the details.

So, where does this leave everything? Well, mostly back to normal really. I’m sure no one is reading this as I know DA blogs can be pretty boring if you’re not super interested in the creator or they’re not about some Llama based give-away but I’ve got some stuff to share anyway.

I haven’t posted about it, but if you’ve followed my streams any you’ll have noticed some recurring characters that aren’t in Antares Complex. So what’s up with that? I’m starting a new comic! Just to stop all 3 of my readers from worrying, it’s NOT replacing Antares Complex! It’s a side project that I’m looking to get on Comixology or something. It’s a comic with it’s own plans and goals but it’s going to be a light-hearted comic series that’s the exact opposite of A.C. Like Shark and Lizard girls on an adventure? Well this has that! I don’t have an estimate when this will be out because I am doing it on the side and it’s taken a learning curve to get my head around it and hey, I’m still learning! As we all should be. Also I don’t have a name for it which is a bit of a problem
Antares Complex is on hiatus as I’ve finished the latest issue and it’ll resume shortly.

But anyway, I’ve gone on long enough. Let me know your thoughts and if I was just being too vague! I try not to give away too much because I want it to be interesting and not like movie trailers which will spoil EVERYTHING.

Thanks for reading all 3 of you and see you in a stream soon I hope!

 

 

No update this week, apologies.

by on June 5, 2017 at 2:18 pm
Posted In: Other

Hey guys,

Sorry to say there’s no update this week because this week has been jam packed with crap.

Family member needed to go to the hospital for the second time within 2 months and it was 5 hours mostly in a hallway of the Emergency Room crowded with screaming, crying, security chasing down people drinking booze etc. Said person is fine now and home but there was a lot of bullshit.

For one, the hospital (Nassau University Medical Center) was so comically incompetent that not only did they not feed the person for the duration of their stay but said person was supposed to be discharged after 24 hours but they “could not contact the doctors to get her discharged” so she spent another fucking day unfed in the hospital with no good excuse. We can all be sure that this mistake will be found on the bill with a large number next to it.

Also got to watch someone drink from the hand sanitizer pumps (*contains alcohol) and the nurses did little to stop this person beyond emptying the pump in front of the woman’s room. Quality hospital, I highly recommend it if you hate being cared for, like being lied to and probably charged for their mistakes.

So, not only did she have it ‘fun’, we sure did too. So, just to reassure everyone she’s home and as fine as she can be and is back to doing her thing.

I’m grateful to my cousin Geo who stuck around to keep me sane, we played Disgaea 5 on Switch and some Sonic 3 & Knuckles…so, sane(ish) and entertained! Him & his girlfriend stopped by the next day because they’re super awesome and they certainly helped calm me down.

There was a lot of trouble besides this, mostly involving crap/no sleep and drama with people that could have been avoided but of course had to all fall in at the worst moments.

Annoyingly a Windows Update killed a file I was working on so… I lost work JUST to rub things in.

I’ll probably regret typing this crap up because let’s face it, everyone has life trouble and you guys don’t need to hear it. But this, tied in with a lot of shit I’m not talking about really has burnt me out and I couldn’t swing the page this week.

Sorry everyone.

Artwork: Neige Flexin’

by on April 10, 2017 at 4:05 am
Posted In: Antares Complex

I’ve been trying to suss out how to post artwork here, I don’t want it going on the comic pages and I’m not sure I can get a image gallery installed with Comic Press! So let’s try it as a blog post eh?

 

From 2012!!!

Needed to get some art that’s not actually IN the comic done for funs. So we got Neige from the comic series Antares Complex posing here heroically or smugly flexing with the Dagger showing off above her.

Neige is just a fun character to me because all too often I see girls wearing next to nothing in combat rolls (it’s not bad but it’s just too common) so we got Neige here, flexing in body armor and she’s not a skinny girl. She’s got some guns if ya catch me.

Either way this is 1 of a few pics I’ve decided to do with color themes. Obviously this one is red.

Antares Complex © Gx3R / Mike Girardin

Nintendo Switch Review

by on March 9, 2017 at 3:57 pm
Posted In: Video Games

So, despite my complaints I bit the bullet and got the Nintendo Switch, which I’ll likely be selling my WiiU to make up the difference for that mess. ANYWAY I wanted to get my thoughts out after actually getting my hands on the device.

It’s a surprisingly well built machine, it’s the first tablet I’ve seen with screws that would allow you to open it up to change the battery if it were to fail. The joycons feel really well built, and it’s nice that you can sit back with your hands not together with normal controllers, especially if you’re like me and have wide shoulders and a barreled chest. My hands are medium sized with sausages for fingers and over all I have little issue with the joycons. The biggest issue I have is the minus button on the left joycon, I cannot for the life of me reach to hit it with my thumb, I gotta use my other hand. The “dpad”, is as a I thought not great. For all the Nintendo fanatics insisting “you need to try it to know” no, I didn’t, it’s 4 face buttons and not a pivoting dpad. It works fine for menus but it’s functionality is minimal at best for platformers.

The buttons are click-y and nice overall and the sticks function well. Obviously something like the XB1/PS4/WiiUPro sticks are better for precision but, for a portable/non portable device? Totally serviceable, though if you have bigger hands you may not like the right analog stick location unless you’re using the included joycon holder thing.

The screen is lovely, it’s 720p but obviously when the game is scaled to match the device’s screen it works nicely. Seeing the game at 900p on my 1080p TV isn’t as bad as everyone makes it to be, maybe it’s just Breath of the Wild’s cell shaded art style (no other games to really try this with either) but it certainly isn’t ugly as I’ve heard. Maybe on a 4k TV it’s harder to swallow, I don’t know. Speaking of which, the transition is pretty swift, put it into the dock, it’s instantly on the TV, something I’ve wanted for YEARS.

Okay, I’ve sounded pretty positive, but now I’m going to talk about the flaws to this device, and they can be pretty severe depending on what you want to do with the unit.


The dock is a cheap pile of garbage, it’s mostly hollow, really light, okay-feeling plastic. It looks nice, even hides your cables but there’s one other major flaw with this. There’s sliders to help guide the tablet into the dock, they are hard plastic and WILL SCRATCH YOUR SCREEN. How you ask? The screen isn’t glass, it’s a soft plastic that you can easily, easily scratch. Got a 3DS? It’s like that. You absolutely need a screen protector, so get your credit card ready because there’s more than that 10 bucks you’ll be spending.

The internal storage is less than 32GB after formatting, system/game updates. Do not bother with saving games here, find a microSD card, make sure it’s a fast one and get no less than 64GB. Games range from 4GB to around 30GB. You’ll probably want one off amazon since I’ve seen 128GB cards go on sale for 50 or less.

The battery life is awful. I’m sure there’s someone reading this who’ll leap to defend it. If people mock the Game Gear for crap battery life, this thing lasts less than even that device playing something like Breath of the Wild. 2.5-3 hours, if you have a full, new, battery. So, more money spending if you’re a mobile person! Because  you can purchase a USB-C battery bank and play on the go, which is obviously less than ideal. Game Gear offered the same option and it’s still dumb 20 years later.
The kickstand is useless, it’s, so, useless. I have a Surface Pro 4 and had a SP2 which yes is a more expensive device but the kickstand being my point goes across the entire back flush and shouldn’t be too hard. Also, if you want to play and charge in tablet mode? You can’t because the USB-C port is on the bottom of the unit, meaning it can’t sit while you play unless you, you guessed it, buy a stand. Or if you have a 3D printer I’m sure you can swing that.
The device is huge, if you’re going to travel, you want some kind of case. There’s a few of them online I’ve seen, all gigantic rivaling the size of the Atari Lynx model 1. This isn’t really avoidable since it does have a big (and lovely) screen and the controllers fit on the sides, even if you take them off you still need to store them.

The clips that snap onto the sides of the joycons are a huge problem, it’s really easy to mix them up and put them on wrong and…well just youtube how to fix it because, with a tool it’s easy to get off. Otherwise, you may be stuck till you get one.

It’s not a perfect system but it’s getting a lot of flack I don’t think it deserves. Don’t get me wrong it’s bloody flawed, down to the accessories being way too expensive. But if you want one, and you MUST have one, it’s not a purchase I think you’d have to be ashamed of.

In terms of accessories, it’s robust what it comes with.
-2 joycons
-Joycon controller grip
-Joycon strap grips
-Dock + wires

But the other accessories you may be inclined to buy, such as the pro controller and such are priced rather high. As are replacement accessories. Joycons are $80, pro controller is $70, dock is around $90.

Rumors to talk about:
-No, the switch doesn’t get too hot. Your phone during a game could get more hot than this. 2+hours docked playing Breath of The Wild and it was very warm, and it won’t get that warm when in handheld mode.

-The analog sticks are fine, I don’t have any issues with them. They’re not strange like the PSP or 3DS, they tilt and everything. The Dpad is not great though.

-The build quality on the joycons and actual tablet is damn nice. It’s more so than the new 3DS XL. Nothing feels flimsy and the joycons do not pivot on the sides of the unit. I’ve seen a youtube vid of a guy doing so, he dun’ messed up because held even at the VERY edges of the joycons, no problem. Held by one joycon, it works fine.

Nintendo did a pretty good job, there’s some major flaws about the unit, but that said I think I could list some issues with the PS4 in a proper review. (Low HDD space, huge installs, crap load times, crap battery life on the controllers).

There’s NO reason to get the Switch with this all said at the moment. It’s the launch of the device, with a whopping …what, 9 games? Only Breath of the Wild is a must have as well as Shovel Kngiht and the rest are either not interesting or too expensive (Bomberman). There’s no virtual console list of SNES titles or whatever.

In maybe a few months when Sonic Mania & “Other Sonic Game” come out, along with Mario Kart 8 & Splatoon 2 come out, yeah it’d be worth getting. But, the other thing to then consider is if you’re gonna play these games online…You’re gonna be forking out online fees.

The dock does not add any special CPU or up-scaling. The dock provides extra power, the switch recognizes it and increases it’s own CPU/GPU clockspeed.

Disclosure: I bought my own Switch and copy of Breath of the Wild. I’m not the kind of person who buys games or devices based on a company. I have PS1-4, PSP, Sega Genesis+CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Game Gear, SNES, Gamecube, Wii, WiiU, Switch, GBA SP+New3DSXL, a Microsoft Surface Pro 4.