Quote Originally Posted by Chick View Post
I bought a tablet primarily to try drawing better coastlines and mountains.

To my surprise, it has improved my drawing of lots of things. Yes, it took some practice mechanically to touch and lift the pen properly, and it took a lot of getting used to looking somewhere other than where my hand was, but both things are getting easier.
I think that we have identified why the tablet helped a lot. I would argue that it was the deliberate practice that helped more than the tablet. The tablet certainly provided extra incentive and required you to pay more attention to what you were doing, but I'm pretty sure that you could get the same effect using pen and paper. For me, I have spent a whole lot of dollars over the years on trying to find the magic software and hardware package that includes talent in the box. I have come to the conclusion that things like layout, color schemes, line quality, and a whole host of non-mechanical things can't quite be taught. In accordance with Godwin's law, Adolph Hitler was able to do reasonably good artwork, but the opinion of many of his contemporaries was that there was a missing something (perhaps some creative spark) that left many of his artworks broadly uninteresting. I haven't been able to summon the patience to get anywhere near as good as Hitler was, and I certainly lack the patience required to get that good.

It is my experiences over the years that tell me that simple external aids won't make me a better artist. I get marginally better when I practice, but not good enough to reward me enough to keep at the practice required to get the mechanics down well. And all of my compositions seem to be largely uninteresting, lacking much in the way of tension or flow.

A tablet can certainly be an asset if you have some level of skill to hone. In my opinion, a tablet won't help with the talent portion of making art, but it might help improve the skill portion of making art. It does take a good bit of effort to train the eye to look at other than the hand. You also need to decide what kind of drawing you do (for me, the 6"x8" tablet was much more useful than other sizes because I can hold it on my forearm and sketch with the other hand), which is likely to help determine the size of tablet and its features.