I’ve been pretty busy lately, therefore there haven’t been many updates. I participated in Inktober this year, and it kept me busy. I also tore out old carpeting in my basement that had been all glued to the cement floor, and that ate up all the rest of my free time. But I do have a quick tip to share.

While participating in the Inktober challenge, from time-to-time, I needed a light table to rework preliminary drawings that I mostly screwed up on. There’s no undo in real life. I don’t own a light table any more (though, I once did own a Mickey Mouse drawing table for many, many years as a kid), and I find the small dinky ones you can buy in art supply stores a waste of money.

At my first job, we had these huge light tables the size of standard (grown up) drawing tables. And unlike other large light tables you would find in pint houses and other production oriented graphic arts places, these light tables could pivot to just about any angle, making it easier for drawing. They were great! And don’t ask me where they got them, as they were specially made for us. Though I was pretty certain I found someone selling the exact same model we had on Kijiji (sort of a cross between eBay and Craglist for Canada) so it is possible that someone out there makes them. No matter, as I certainly don’t have the space for such a huge beast.

So with no light table, I had to improvise. Enter my iPad Mini.

I just set the screen bightness to maximum and opened a blank page in Safari. And presto! One quick and dirty light table. Worked pretty well too. Just be careful, even with two sheets of paper between me and the screen, I was still able to move things around on the screen pretty easily.

Oh, and try no to spill any ink on the iPad. Probably not a good idea.

I also assume this would work with just about any tablet that has a bright enough screen setting.