Introducing the Inkling, the latest in Wacom’s black magic

arts tech

Wacom introduces Inkling, a new digital sketch pen that captures a digital likeness of your work while you sketch with its ballpoint tip on any sketchbook or standard piece of paper.

The Inkling digital sketch pen captures a digital likeness of your work while you sketch with its ballpoint tip on any sketchbook or standard piece of paper. Designed for rough concepting and creative brainstorming, Inkling is ideal for the front end of the creative process. Later, refine your work on your computer using an Intuos4 tablet or Cintiq interactive pen display.

In addition to capturing your sketch, stroke by stroke, Inkling allows you to create layers in digital files while you sketch on paper. Digital files are transferred to your computer using the Inkling Sketch Manager software, and later, exported to applications such as Adobe® Photoshop® and Illustrator®. Files can also be opened with the included Inkling Sketch Manager software to edit, delete, add layers or change file formats

What is this sorcery?! I call black magic!

These are some of the highlights:

Sketch your ideas on standard paper or sketchbooks while capturing a digital likeness of your sketch.
Store hundreds of sketches on the receiver before transferring them to your PC or Mac.
Export your sketches with layers directly from the Inkling Sketch Manager software into Adobe® Photoshop®, Illustrator® (CS3+), Autodesk® Sketchbook® Pro (2011+) or Autodesk® Sketchbook® Designer.
Files can also be saved in: JPG, BMP, TIFF, PNG, SVG & PDF for use with other applications.

At a price range of $200 you can’t go wrong. However, don’t think of this as a replacement for the Cintiq. The Inkling is limited to the size of an A4 paper (210 x 297 mm, 8.27” x 11.69”). The Inkling could be used on larger paper sizes but will only record a drawing area of the size I just mentioned, and it will not record strokes made within 2CM of the receiver.

It’s still a great deal considering there’s nothing like this on the market right now. You can expect this beauty to hit the shelves mid-September, so get those wallets ready.