SESAME WORKSHOP BENEFITS FROM WACOM TOOLS
January 22, 2009

SESAME WORKSHOP BENEFITS FROM WACOM TOOLS

Nancy Stevenson is a creative director at Sesame Workshop and specializes in character graphics for licensing, marketing, interactive media, Web and community outreach. She and her colleagues in the creative services department are responsible for translating the look of actual 3D puppets into 2D images, the blue-lining of book illustrations, as well as photo shoots and editing photography for video packaging and point of purchase. Most of their work involves vector art using Illustrator, as well as Photoshop, InDesign and SketchBook Pro.

While designers were already using Wacom's Intuos3 tablets in their workflow, which included traditional blue pencils and tracing paper, a trade show introduced them to the Cintiq 21UX LCD display, and half of the design staff is now using Cintiqs.

"Drawing fur and feathers is much easier with the Cintiq," Stevenson says. "In order to emulate the textures, we need to give the fur and feathers a specific thin-to-thick shaped line," she says. "The only way to do this efficiently is with the pressure sensitive Wacom pen. Otherwise, it takes hours or even days to tweak and pull anchor points to achieve that look."

PHOTO: Sesame Workshop's Mark Magner at work.