There's something that I've always wanted, but never really known the name of. A couple of members on the deviantArt forums kindly identified what I was looking for - and that's a lightbox!

A lightbox appears to be the name given to several products, but basically what I was looking for was a backlit drawing board. There were several that I found, but this is the one that I settled on. An inexpensive A4 lightbox by Eyebright.


Aside from the obvious uses such as being able to work in the dark, the lightbox allows me to see through ordinary paper as if it were tracing paper. Which is great! Tracing paper is horrible!!

Normally I would ink over pencil lines, which can become a little messy and ultimately means losing the original pencil drawing. This allows me to ink directly onto a separate piece of paper.

Here you can see the three pieces of paper that make up this picture. The lines are normally more defined, but I'm not leaning on the paper in the photo.


I see through you!


That looks kind of spooky actually.

There's also another use, and it's probably my main reason for getting this. Often when I see a drawing that a drew a couple of months earlier, I'm horrified at the incorrect proportions and symmetry. My eyes tend to grow accustomed to what I've drawn so I miss glaring faults. It helps to flip drawings and work on them in reverse. Being able to see the drawing from a new perspective is invaluable. Well, it helps at least! I still have a lot of problems in that regard.

Due to the fact that I work office hours and live fairly high up the Northern Hemisphere, for most of the year I spend my time drawing in the dark. A light source is something that I use a lot. Although it doesn't get hot, the lightbox does gets warm with use. So it should come as no surprise when I say that this is going to be my best friend during winter!


I was messing with my camera and I was surprised how well this photo came out. She's only 2 inches tall!