Alcohol-based leather dye, a wool dauber and a half-dyed vegetable-tanned leather strap on a workbench.
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Wacom Intuos Small Review: Drawing Leather Patterns With a Pen Tablet

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

A forty-dollar pad and a battery-free pen, judged by what makers and owners say it does for a template.

The Wacom Intuos Small is the cheapest pen tablet in Wacom’s range, a 6-by-3.7-inch drawing surface and a battery-free pen that plug into a computer and stand in for the mouse, and for a leatherworker drafting patterns on a screen it raises a simple question: does drawing with a pen make a template better or faster than clicking out curves? This review works from specifications, independent reviewers and customer reports, not from hands-on testing. Independent editorial coverage of this exact model proved thin, so the evidence comes mostly from Wacom’s specifications, retailer reviews from verified owners, critics’ reviews of the pricier Intuos Pro Small, and makers on Leatherworker.net who have used Wacom tablets for pattern work.

Video: The New Wacom Intuos Review, from Miyuli on YouTube.

The specification sheet

A small active area, 4,096 pressure levels, four buttons and a pen that never needs charging.

A gloved hand applying alcohol-based dye to vegetable-tanned leather with a wool dauber.

Wacom’s Intuos product page gives the Small an active area of 152 by 95 mm and an overall footprint of 200 by 160 by 8.8 mm. The Pen 4K senses 4,096 pressure levels, needs no battery and reads from 7 mm above the surface. Four ExpressKeys along the top edge can be set per application on Windows and Mac. The wired version carries the model number CTL-4100, and the Bluetooth version, CTL-4100WL, adds a built-in battery.

Compatibility runs wider than most buyers expect. Wacom lists Windows 7 or later (excluding Windows 10 S), macOS 10.15 or later, Android 6.0 and up, and ChromeOS. The bundle includes a two-year license for Clip Studio Paint Pro and 90-day trials of Corel Painter Essentials 8 and Corel AfterShot Pro 3, among others, all of which require a Wacom ID and product registration.

The New Zealand retailer PB Tech adds detail Wacom’s page leaves out: a weight of 230 g, a resolution of 2,540 lines per inch, no multi-touch, a 1.5 m USB-to-micro-USB cable, and three spare nibs with a removal tool in the box. iFixit’s device page dates the CTL4100 to 2018 and notes that the model name is printed on the underside, which helps anyone buying one secondhand.

The Amazon listing showed 4.6 out of 5 from 23,961 ratings in October 2026, priced at $39.95, according to the Amazon product page. That is the wired model.

Choosing between wired and Bluetooth comes down to the bench. Wacom’s page specifies Bluetooth Classic for the CTL-4100WL, which frees the tablet from the computer at the cost of a battery to charge. The wired CTL-4100 draws power over its cable, and PB Tech lists a tether slot on the casing, a small point in a shared workshop where tools wander.

What owners report

Easy setup and good value on one side, worn nibs and the odd dropped connection on the other.

Amazon’s figure is the large sample. PB Tech’s page is smaller, at 4.7 out of 5 from 69 reviews when fetched, with no rating below three stars, but its written comments give more texture. A verified owner in June 2026 called it “Great price, easy to set up and can get working with right away.” Another, in August 2026, bought two for children who use them for animation and game design.

The criticisms on that page are older and specific. A 2021 reviewer found the replaceable nibs wear down quickly under heavy pressure, and a 2020 reviewer reported the tablet sometimes losing its connection to a laptop until the file was reopened. Several owners framed it as a tablet for beginners and students, and the retailer’s own summary suggests advanced users may want a larger surface and finer pressure sensitivity.

Nib wear is worth taking seriously for pattern work. A pattern drafter traces, redraws and corrects the same outline many times, and the spares in the box are there because Wacom expects them to be used. The iFixit page confirms that the pen’s nibs are designed to be swapped. Creative Bloq’s review of the Pro Small raised a related point about the more expensive tablet, noting that without changeable texture sheets, heavy-handed users may wear through nibs faster.

What leatherworkers say about tablets and patterns

Makers on the forum treat the tablet as an input device, with the real decision being which program sits behind it.

Dip-dyed vegetable-tanned leather straps drying flat on cardboard in different shades of brown.

The longest Leatherworker.net thread on pattern software opened in August 2011 with a member named Blackey Cole asking for a simple program that would draw half a symmetrical pattern from a center line and mirror it. He mentioned using a Wacom tablet for drawing and wanted the software to recognise it. He planned to print the finished shapes on overhead projector film and trace them onto leather. The replies in that thread are practical. Member Ferg warned that Photoshop “is not a designing platform” even if a Wacom drawing can be copied into it. Member cem, who drew in Illustrator with a Wacom Cintiq, offered the reassurance that “Most programs will allow a Wacom as an input device.”

Later pages of the same thread move the argument to software. On page five, member koreric75 described using Inkscape’s scatter extension in 2018 to lay out stitch holes along a line, and member LatigoAmigo said he relied on Illustrator’s tools for straight lines and found the results better, though not faster. In a 2017 thread on computer templates, member cowboycolonel described placing a photo of a pattern into Illustrator, sizing it against guides and tracing over it.

Tracing a photographed pattern is the job where a pen most obviously beats a mouse, because the hand follows a curve that already exists. Generating a perfect circle, a straight edge or a row of evenly spaced stitch marks is a job for the software’s own tools, and a tablet adds little there. For the kind of small, precise piece described in the writing pad portfolio build, most of the pattern is straight lines and right angles, and the curves are the corners.

The Intuos Pro Small, one step up

Twice the pressure levels, plus tilt, touch and more buttons, at a much higher price.

The obvious alternative is Wacom’s own Intuos Pro Small, and it is the model that independent critics actually reviewed. David Cousens at Creative Bloq tested it in June 2019, when it cost £199.99, and called it “The new gold standard graphics tablet for creatives on the move.” Its Pro Pen 2 senses 8,192 pressure levels and 60 levels of tilt, and the tablet adds six ExpressKeys, a touch ring and multi-touch gestures with a switch to turn them off. Cousens noted that the entry-level Intuos lacks the multi-touch and touch ring, and that the Pro Small ships without the software bundle the cheaper range includes.

Amber Neely reviewed the same Pro Small for AppleInsider in July 2019 at $249.95 and rated it 4.5 out of 5. Her findings bear on the cheaper model too, because the drawing areas are close in size. She found the small surface better for final touches and photo editing than for extended sketching, reported hand fatigue during detailed work, and noted the surface lacked the tooth of paper.

Al Dean at Develop3D looked at it from the CAD side and suggested mapping the ExpressKeys to zoom, pan and rotate in 3D programs. A pattern drafter could put the four keys on the standard Intuos to the same kind of work: shortcuts for undo, zoom and the tools reached for most.

None of these reviews claim the extra pressure levels or tilt help with technical drawing, and all three were written with illustrators, photographers or CAD users in mind. For template outlines, the published evidence makes no case that the Pro model draws a better line.

Who the evidence points toward

A maker who traces paper patterns into software, or sketches shapes before refining them, has the clearest use for it.

A white cloth buffed across black-dyed leather to check for dye rub-off.

Read together, the sources describe a dependable, inexpensive input device that does one thing: it lets a hand draw on a computer the way it draws on paper. Owners praise the price and setup, and complaints run to consumables and occasional connection hiccups rather than failures. Makers on the forum used Wacom tablets alongside vector programs for years, and their advice was to check the software first.

A drafter who works entirely in straight lines and measured curves may find the tablet sits unused, because the program’s own tools generate those shapes more exactly than a hand can. A maker who sketches freehand, traces old card patterns from photographs, or draws tooling designs has the clearest use for it. Learning a new tool takes time either way, as the piece on how long leatherwork takes to learn says of the bench itself.

The small size is the question each buyer has to settle. The AppleInsider reviewer’s hand fatigue on a similar-sized Pro Small is the one published warning, and at under forty dollars the cost of finding out is low. The pattern still ends up on card, then on leather, and the tablet only decides how the line got there.

Wacom Intuos Small, wired: The listing this review covers, showing 4.6 stars from 23,961 ratings at $39.95 when checked on October 19, 2026. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

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