Vera Brosgol is the illustrator and author behind picture books and graphic novels Anya’s Ghost, Plain Jane and the Mermaid, and many other works and projects.
Recently, she had a great opportunity: to kitten-sit her friends’ new Siamese kittens! But there was a problem — the deadline for spot illustrations for her upcoming book was only a week away.
How could she hang out with the kittens and also finish her book on time? Enter Wacom Movink, a truly portable and powerful pen display. By using Wacom Movink, she could finish her book without having to be at home where her Wacom Cintiq 24 is.
“Normally I work on a Wacom Cintiq 24, which is pretty big. And it means I’m kind of shackled to my desk at home. But I’m currently trying out the Wacom Movink, which is extremely portable and skinny and nice,” she explains. “And I thought this might be a great way to solve a couple of problems! I can watch the sweet adorable kittens, and I can also stay on top of my deadlines.”
In this video, she gives us her thoughts about Wacom Movink, shows us her process for creating spot illustrations for her new book, and of course spends some time with two of the cutest kittens ever!
Aside from making work and kitten-sitting possible, Brogsol appreciated Wacom Movink‘s simple connectivity: “Something that I really like about this thing, is it’s super easy to connect with just a single USB-C cable that goes right into my laptop.”
While she prefers a bulkier pen than the special Movink Pro Pen 3 — “it’s very skinny, maybe a little bit skinnier than I would want,” she says — she did appreciate its customizable buttons. And Wacom Movink is compatible with a standard Wacom Pro Pen or a variety of third-party pens.
“I did the rough drawings for this book in Procreate [on my iPad],” she says. “Because I did not have a Movink at the time and I wanted to work portably. So I did my rough sketches that way. But I didn’t like it for the final art. I didn’t like any of the brushes — nothing felt quite right.”
That wasn’t the only issue. With an all-in-one drawing tablet, you’re often stuck in a particular operating system, and sending files around can be difficult. “And … it was it was tricky to bring in the the PDFs from from my designer. It was it was just so much more straightforward and intuitive to do all of that stuff on [my computer],” she explains. “I could just have Acrobat open, I could have my reference stuff open, in a way that I think just wouldn’t have been as easy in Procreate, and I really really love this particular brush … I don’t have anything quite like it. So it was a real kind of no-brainer to do the final art in Clip Studio Paint.”
Watch the video to hear more thoughts and to see her spot illustration process. And make sure to look out for Return to Sender, publishing in 2025!
About the Creator
Vera Brosgol was born in Moscow, Russia in 1984 and moved to the United States when she was five. She received a diploma in Classical Animation from Sheridan College, and spent many years working in feature animation but now she is writing and drawing books full-time.
She has storyboarded for Laika on the feature films Coraline, Paranorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings, and was Head of Story for the Academy-Award-winning Pinnochio.
Her first graphic novel, Anya’s Ghost, was published in 2011 by First Second Books and won an Eisner Award. Her first picture book, Leave Me Alone, was published in 2016 by Roaring Brook Press and won a Caldecott Honor. Her most recent graphic novel is Plain Jane and the Mermaid.
She lives in Portland, OR, and loves hiking, riding her bike, and baking bread.
