Why Wacom´s Inkling is a Marketing Fail

As artist or designer you have probably heard about the new product Wacom is promoting currently, the "Inkling", with a specific pen and hardware that can interpret the movements on paper you are even able to digitize sketches on the go:



The idea is good but when viewing this "promotional video" with the "why-how-what" principle in mind, I realize there is no why, no actual reason for me to say "Yes" to this product - big fail from the marketing department here.
When viewing the enthusiasm around me about this fancy thing, I realize that Wacom created a really big wave, which is not bad. But its connected to a big promise, and as far as I can see they show everything the product can do in the spot. The problem with promises is that they require to be kept. The success of any Keynote from Steve Jobs was that he picked just a few of the great things any new product he showed can do, so that customers find out a big list of additional goodies themselves, any promise was overdelivered, with any apple product ever made. Simple tactic and it still works.

But back to the promise:
Sure would it be great if my idea can start as traditional sketches and immediately become digitized, but can you tell me one reason why I should not stick with the sketch-on-the-go-and-scan-later-at-office practice?

The reason I predict this product to be a fail (please note: this is my personal opinion) is that the benefit for artists in general is much smaller than the costs and that it targets at artists of all classes but forgets that only digital experts can think in invisible layers.

The benefits that are evident at the first glance might be time saving aspect and the ability to digitize on the go.
This might be true if you are a comic artist and if inking digitally over pencils is a pain for you.
I´m not bothering about the prize here, this gadget might be good for any doodler or early adopter who wants to show something fancy to their friends, but professionals who have to deliver on a tight deadline need a better reason.

Above all it requires from me to get used to a clumsy pen. I wonder what happens when the battery is empty "on the go" and if you even can see the layers you are creating, some people have even issues with layers they see in Photoshop, what about "invisible-layers" then?

I can only speak for myself and I work on sketches with an F or H pencil for a rough and an HB mechanical pencil for detail works. Its comfortable enough to scan the sketch and work from there in Photoshop for shadings, coloring and finalizing the work. And I know the workflow of most professionals who still work on paper is similar. The main problem is time for a really good workflow, changing the workflow means less productivity, in the worst case a failed investment and even worse: lost time.

Show me a presentation where an art-director utilize such a gadget to demonstrate the use of it in a meeting for example or a comic book artist who really can benefit from working into vector inks directly from a sketchbook.
This would be for sure a smaller target audience, but the promise wouldn´t be too big to keep, just realistic.

But Wacom, I will not leave you in the dark about any reason for sales reluctance:
If you can find a better reason for artists to use such a device and say "YES" to your product, you are on a good way. Or if you learn to target a specific audience within the artist community, instead of speaking to all artists with one Ad. And by the way; not everyone is an expert in imagining invisible layers:)

MY prediction for an epic-win would be pressure sensitive stylus (or support) for the iPad, but I´m saying this since years and no one is hearing me, go on you fingerpainters and inklings, in a few years you come back to this blog and say:" you were so right" :-)

How To Inspire Action

There are some things that fascinate me lately, the one thing I currently read much about is psychology, perception and a lot about human behavior.

One might think that I´m an artist and so I better should draw and put up my sketchbook or latest works here for the world to see, yadda yadda...

If that is your view of what artists should do, then please move on to another artists blog, this space is reserved for my personal growth and interests that I share with those who are genuinely interested in achieving their goals too.

There is a reasonable difference between calling to action and inspiring action.

Website designers build sites around the -popular "call to action", which might work to get you to download the newest skype version but to get someone to submit an inquiry to ask for your service as a freelance illustrator, requires a bit more.
That´s where inspiration comes into play. Inspiration has the big advantage that it is free, it feels good and in the best case it sends chills down your spine, which create an emotional interconnection. This makes the experience unforgettable - that´s when you feel the need to connect with a person on a deeper level and share your views and conceptions to bring them to life, even years later the linkage is still active because its connected with the person, images, whatsoever... which is practically more worth than any big website "call to action"-button.

Simon Sinek had an interesting TED-talk about the power of inspiration which I´d like to recommend:

The justified question which might come up by visitors to this blog, is why I don´t post more tutorials or walk -through´s and images, the answer is simple, there are a lot other artists who show what they have done and how they did it, but that´s not what I want, my ambition is to inspire action to create works that are not yet created.

A few month ago I considered to change my blog. Now and inspired by this TED talk, I contemplated again, critically focused on my purpose. Rather than to go for the "how" and "what" I found that I am just on the right path with my blog, instead of updating just with my recent work (what) or tutorials (how) I rather like to understand why the world works the way it does. People expect from me to paint the things they imagine, but at the same time they silently expect to get inspired. This is the point where you either deliver just what the client wants, or you act and go a step further by pushing a concept or idea to a higher level. Sure you have to be in a position to do so, I can just speak for myself here and I believe I wouldn´t stand here where I am now, without giving more than I was asked for, every time.

I like to inspire people, with emotional labor and creativity, I feel sense and purpose in finding solutions, that´s my honest reason why I prefer illustration and commercial art over fine art. With international publications I can inspire far more people in the world than with a gallery reception and works that are only affordable to a few.

The "what factor" is not important to me, because once a work is done and out of my head - its done, it might be great and getting better with every new piece, but the really exciting process is when a concept comes to life - (every author/editor knows or should know how that feels) and that´s why I do what I do and why I chose to do this over and over again, until I´m old and boring.

I really believe in things not yet created and I feel good going a different way as artist. Whilst others misuse the medium blog for their picture-dumps(what) and tutorials(how) I find that it is especially necessary to go the opposite direction to attract the just right clients, people who go for the same value as I do, the confidence, the vision and personality that lead to an extraordinary and successful collaboration.

The personal reason why I chose to be creative for the long run is the driving force that is connected with the happiness that comes when a project launches and leads to new connections, new challenges and most important: satisfied, inspired clients and their happy customers.

Average is everywhere, to stand out you not only need to think different, even outside the box isn´t enough, you need to walk outside the edges of the box to have the perfect view over in-and-outside.

Satchel Paige puts a summary of my credo in just three sentences:

Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.


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"Get inspired"

Art Theft or Theft-Art?

You might heard about this big online-art-theft from Chad Love Lieberman, for those not familiar with that case, its an imposter who describes himself as a multimedia artist with a diverse style who makes a celebrity lifestyle out of it, while in fact all works were taken from other artists, most of them from deviantArt.

For some evidence, here are blogs and more info around the theft:
- http://dametora.deviantart.com/journal/Massive-Art-Theft-Updates-253362644
- http://blog.deirdrereynolds.com/2011/08/art-theft-scam-list.html
- http://sflchronicle.com/chronic-featured/chronic-art/2011/08/calling-all-deviantart-artists-that-have-been-screwed-by-chad-love/
- http://www.fleen.com/archives/2011/08/17/one-thing-i-didnt-expect-to-do-when-i-woke-up-today-call-a-us-senator/

Screengrab from Alexiuss deviation

Alexiuss has setup a PayPal-fund for being able to
pay a lawyer for this case, many of his works were stolen, compared to others and its becoming a really popular thread, so anyone whose work is also ripped should donate a few bucks.





Two of my work including SayNoGood where the screenshot is available, was also in his catalog of works:

Thanks to Andreea Cernestean for the links.

SayNoGood by fantasio

Would be hard for this guy to show proof of the image above, since its a sculpture and not a painting, here´s a WIP shot from the piece when I worked on it:

SayNoGood WIP

And it wouldn´t also be possible for this guy to make a turnaround picture of the same sculpture like this one:

Actually I have not the time to worry too much about rip-offs or plagiarism, if the value is high enough, I have a lawyer for this, but in this case the value is still not enough to have a chance for an overseas lawsuit, especially since the site is taken down its hard to show proof and to get things to court.

The only thing I hope is that the community of artists and helpers who track everything down and put every piece of the puzzle together to show evidence of the theft will have success. This blog post and a donation to Alexiuss fund, is my way to help the community of artists to raise awareness.

Actually I don´t bother if artists chose to copy my work, or someone elses, even when the edge between inspiration and plagiarism is suspect, I don´t really bother, because eventually the artist in question learns something out of this. But in this case the artist in question has shown only one ability and this is theft. Theft itself is an artform, an underappreciated, but its art too for some people. But in this case, the thief was so dumb to mess with a whole community of artists and the battle as also the informations about the whole persona, will be manifested into the memory of the internet for generations to come. Hopefully in a daunting manner.

There is a nice article about "short-term-capitalism" on Seth Godin´s blog, that tells in other words what art4love connected with Lieberman was all about.

Feel free to share, blog or repost this article or write your own to make people aware of this fraud, thanks.