MARCH 31, 2015 Business Tribune INSIDE PORTLAND’S BLADED TOOL INDUSTRY WACOM GETS DRAWN IN UNTAPPED CUTTING EDGE POTENTIAL COMCAP PDX BY JOHN M. VINCENT PAGE 8 2 BUSINESS TRIBUNE Tuesday, March 31, 2015 509294.032415 BT Tuesday, March 31, 2015 BUSINESS TRIBUNE 3 WACOM GETS DRAWN IN TRIBUNE PHOTO: JIM CLARK Anolog meets digital: Steve Lieber of Periscope Studio in Portland uses a Wacom screen to draw his illustrations in native digital format. Graphics tablet pioneer makes the move to Portland hen Wacom an- Wacom makes tablets and sty- pan in 1983 as a way to enter hand- shop, Sketchbook, Illustrator, with the Galaxy Note. nounced in March it luses that are market leaders in drawn Japanese characters into a Corel Painter, SketchBook, ZBrush The exact calibration between was selling its 56,000 creative industries, but may not be computer. As software programs from Pixologic, Mudbox (sculpting) tip and the electromagnetic grid Wsquare foot cube farm known to consumers who are hap- such as Mac Paint and Fractal De- and Maya for 3D animation from beneath the screen’s glass is the in Tech Center, Vancouver, and py fi ngerpainting on their iPads or sign appeared, artists adopted the Autodesk. secret sauce that has professionals moving to a brand new building in scribbling on their Surfaces. Wa- pen to take advantage of them. Wacom works with software clinging to the brand. Portland’s Pearl District, it was com’s gear is expensive (about A computer processing power manufacturers to make sure pow- Wacom’s USA division specializ- visible proof $100 per inch of screen size; $2,700 ballooned, even the most luddite of er users have all the tools they es software engineering. These are of something for a 27 inch display) but they are artists made digital their default. want, from virtual pen nibs to las- the core of the 160 staff who will economists BY JOSEPH bought by the dozen in creative No more repetitive strain injury soes. The company also has a large migrate from Vancouver to the and politi- companies. Anywhere architects, from using a mouse or erasing components group, a non-branded Pearl in 2016. It is leasing the top cians love GALLIVAN illustrators, industrial designers, pencil marks on paper, it soon be- business, selling its technology to three fl oors of a nine-story build- talking comic book artists and photogra- came all about rapid prototyping, the likes of Fujitsu, Lenovo, Pana- ing a couple of blocks south for about. phers work, these days they perch 3D modeling and bouncing fi les off sonic and Sony. For example, Sam- REI on NW 14th Avenue, and will Portland is a creative hub, and upright, mighty pen in-hand, draw- the cloud for comment. sung puts Wacom’s C-switch, have naming rights. The ground the more those companies cluster ing on their Cintiqs and Intuoses. Now software packages abound which can detect 2,048 levels of together the stronger they will be. The company was founded in Ja- that are pressure sensitive: Photo- pressure, in the stylus that comes CONTINUED / Page 4 4 BUSINESS TRIBUNE Tuesday, March 31, 2015 ■ From page 3 fl oor will include a retail store: Wacom products are hard to try- before-you-buy. Plus an Experi- ence Center for lectures and prod- uct demonstrations. “It will be super creative, bright colors everywhere,” says spokes- person Doug Little walking though the cubicles at Tech Cen- ter. “Just what Wacom needs, not this...” he says gesturing. The Experience Center will feel somewhere in between the Micro- soft store and the Apple store, al- though nothing is beyond the con- cept stage yet. It’s all in an archi- tect’s computer. Jim Davis draws that fat cat VISUAL TRICKS Garfi eld on a Wacom. Ditto Scott Periscope’s Steve Lieber turns Adams and his Dilbert. The com- digital ink from black to grey to pany is close to many artists. indicate it is in the background. They recently hosted Dream- [see photo] You can’t do that with Works animator Jason Scheier to Speedball. present to 55 Japanese exchange Erika Moen takes photos of students in the current space. toys in her hand, both so she can But they want to get closer still trace the hand correctly, and the toy. Which was probably designed to the users at Nike, Columbia in a Wacom, like many industrial Sportswear and Adidas, as well as design products. in ad agencies such as Wieden + TRIBUNE PHOTO: JIM CLARK Live by the pen...: Ron Chan draws a Plants vs. Zombies comic book for Dark horse Comics using digital ink on his Wacom Wacom’s Joe Sliger highly rec- Kennedy, the students at the Pa- tablet. His left hand constantly makes adjustments to the pen tools as he works. ommends the TED Talk “RSA cifi c Northwest College of Art, and changing education” by Sir Ken the animators at LAIKA and Robinson, as an example of visual downtown’s Periscope Studio. Comics and illustration are her aids to verbal explanations. full-time business, which she runs https://www.youtube.com/ Truckproof with her husband. Necessity is the watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U Seven years ago at Persicope “[The new mother of invention: Moen went Studio — a private collective of Wacom offi ce] digital when one weekend she was with a sleeping dog and various cartoonists on SW Fifth Avenue forced to take a bus to Seattle and bags and boxes. A jar of sable — you were hard pushed to fi nd will be super work at the same time. “I still got paintbrushes sits to one side, a re- fans of the digital tablet for draw- creative, my work done faster, and ever minder of the old days. He’s draw- ing and inking. But on a recent af- since then I’ve worked digital and ing a Plants vs. Zombies comic ternoon pretty much everyone Doug Little, bright colors met my deadlines. Although it book (published by Dark Horse was using them. Most have two — Public Relations everywhere.” makes me sad there’s no physical Comics), based on the mobile vid- one at work, one at home — be- Manager at Doug Little, page in my hand.” eo game. cause they are not very portable. Wacom spokesperson They all use Manga Studio soft- Chan, 32, learned to draw on pa- Cartoonists treasure their elbow Technology ware. It’s designed for comic book per but he’s been working digitally room, and constantly unplugging Services in artists and does tricks such as most of his career. cords can be a bane. Vancouver, says snap lines to perspective, which “I got a little Wacom in high Steve Lieber swears by the Cin- staff are excited makes drawing dozens of little school and I just moved up the lad- tiq he bought, used, eight years about the move windows in skyscrapers a breeze. der. I’ve never had to deal with ago. He estimates he makes fi ve to to Portland, By way of saying how durable customer service because I’ve nev- six thousand pen strokes a day, on where many of they are, artist Ron Chan tells er had anything break.” He up- a screen that sits at a 60 degree them live how his friend accidentally drove grades because he wants new fea- angle to his desk as he draws anyway. his truck over a Cintiq, duct taped tures rather than to replace bro- “Quantum and Woody.” it back together and it still ken gear. TRIBUNE PHOTO: JIM Like his colleagues, his right CLARK worked. At work drawing a little crea- hand works quickly and deftly, ture facing off against a zombie, adding black lines, while his left Angry Birds he makes a line, erases it, makes hand hits chords on a keyboard, volunteer their opinion of the tool matism, draws on a Wacom 12WX. Chan works at a stand up desk another, erases, makes a third, ac- undoing marks, zooming in, so intimate to their work lives. “I like that you can put a felt nib on a small Cintiq 13 HD which cepts. It’s all with the mesmeriz- changing brush widths and recen- Erika Moen, who draws a web in the stylus, it has a nice bit of costs him around $1,000. It is at- ing rhythm of an action painter, tering the image. comic called Oh Joy Sex Toy, drag,” Moen says. “It feels like I’m tached to his laptop, which is also albeit at a scale of inches. Periscope is a banter-happy where she reviews sex toys with a making lines, as opposed to to just his communication hub. Space is Digital, to Chan, is freeing, be- workplace and people are keen to sex-ed teacher’s unabashed prag- sliding across plastic.” tight at Periscope, but he shares it cause it lets him constantly erase, PRESIDENT VICE PRESIDENT CIRCULATION REPORTER PHOTOGRAPHERS PortlandTribune Business J. Mark Garber Brian Monihan MANAGER Joseph Gallivan Jonathan House, Jaime Valdez Kim Stephens WEB SITE OFFICES Tribune EDITOR AND ADVERTISING DIRECTOR DESIGN portlandtribune.com 6605 S.E. Lake Road ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Christine Moore CREATIVE Keith Sheffi eld Portland, OR 97222 Vance W. Tong SERVICES MANAGER CONTACT 503-226-6397 (NEWS) Cheryl DuVal [email protected] Tuesday, March 31, 2015 BUSINESS TRIBUNE 5 keeping the best mark. digital world, everything still be- “It lets you be brave. You go for WACOM gins with a sketch. New cars are it. I kind of resent going back to pa- Kazo, Saitama, Japan, (HQ), drawn, turned into 3D computer per.