digital drawing tablets

#1 · December 21, 2024, 9:44 pm

helloo!!

i have wanted to get into digital art for years at this point, and i plan to use some of my incoming xmas money to buy my first tablet! I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations or advice or would just like to share their experiences-

ive found that when looking for advice online a lot of it is sponsored, so i came here lookin for more honest opinions. right now im thinking of getting a wacom intuos pro (small), but i find reading technical jargon very very harddd >:[ (dont ask me about my pc building process - ive been in the part picking stage for 4 months now) so i have no clue what makes one tablet better than another, i just like the intuos pro cause its in my budget n can do what i want it to do.

ANYWAY any advice is appreciated 😀

Kallias Dornan and Draig Gnividyks have reacted to this post.

#2 · December 27, 2024, 6:57 pm

Quote from Kallias Dornan on December 27, 2024, 6:57 pm
(Quick Note: All prices are in United States Dollars, USD, but I hate saying USD or American Money all the time, so I come up with funny stand-in names.)

Hey there!

When it comes to picking an artist tablet, you'll probably hate me for saying this, buuuuut... it depends.

Do you like the feeling of looking directly at where your pen is going, much like physical art? (I.e., when we do physical art, we are looking at our canvas and our hand at the same time.)

If you said yes, then my personal recommendation is the XP-Pen Artist 10, which usually costs about $170 United States of Freedom Buckaroos, but sales on both the official website and other places can have it go for as low as $130.

Link:

https://www.xp-pen.com/store/buy/artist-10-2nd-gen.html

Pros:

Pretty low price for a display tablet

Reliable and easy to pack for travel

Cons:

The small form factor can also be a con, as it's only a 10" display

It requires that you plug the USB power cable into a wall adapter

Requires that your computer has an open HDMI port, or that you have an adapter on hand

That's a thing with ALL display tablets.

If you said no, or you just want something cheap to get into the workflow of using a tablet (that also has buttons), then I'd the XP-Pen Deco 01 Drawing Tablet. It's retail price is $60 Bald Eagle Bank Notes. This one also goes on sale for a decent discount. This was actually my first drawing tablet ever that I seriously used regularly.

Link:

https://www.xp-pen.com/store/buy/deco-01-v2.html

Pros:

Pretty damn affordable

Good size, offering more of a drawing area and buttons than the above mentioned Artist 10

No need for external power

Cons:

Size makes it kinda hard to take with you

No display

So yeah! Those are my recommendations. I've heard a lot of good things about Wacom, but also that Wacom is like the Apple of the tablet world, in that they charge you a lot more for something you can get a lot cheaper elsewhere. (Disclaimer: I am very much an Apple user. I have an iPhone, iPad, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro lol)

I'd personally argue against using a smaller tablet, unless you already work with small sketchbooks.

Hope that helps!

-Kalli.

(Quick Note: All prices are in United States Dollars, USD, but I hate saying USD or American Money all the time, so I come up with funny stand-in names.)

Hey there!

When it comes to picking an artist tablet, you'll probably hate me for saying this, buuuuut... it depends.

Do you like the feeling of looking directly at where your pen is going, much like physical art? (I.e., when we do physical art, we are looking at our canvas and our hand at the same time.)

If you said yes, then my personal recommendation is the XP-Pen Artist 10, which usually costs about $170 United States of Freedom Buckaroos, but sales on both the official website and other places can have it go for as low as $130.
- Link:
  - https://www.xp-pen.com/store/buy/artist-10-2nd-gen.html
- Pros:
  - Pretty low price for a display tablet
  - Reliable and easy to pack for travel
- Cons:
  - The small form factor can also be a con, as it's only a 10" display
  - It requires that you plug the USB power cable into a wall adapter
  - Requires that your computer has an open HDMI port, or that you have an adapter on hand
    - That's a thing with ALL display tablets.
If you said no, or you just want something cheap to get into the workflow of using a tablet (that also has buttons), then I'd the XP-Pen Deco 01 Drawing Tablet. It's retail price is $60 Bald Eagle Bank Notes. This one also goes on sale for a decent discount. This was actually my first drawing tablet ever that I seriously used regularly.
- Link:
  - https://www.xp-pen.com/store/buy/deco-01-v2.html
- Pros:
  - Pretty damn affordable
  - Good size, offering more of a drawing area and buttons than the above mentioned Artist 10
  - No need for external power
- Cons:
  - Size makes it kinda hard to take with you
  - No display

So yeah! Those are my recommendations. I've heard a lot of good things about Wacom, but also that Wacom is like the Apple of the tablet world, in that they charge you a lot more for something you can get a lot cheaper elsewhere. (Disclaimer: I am very much an Apple user. I have an iPhone, iPad, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro lol)

I'd personally argue against using a smaller tablet, unless you already work with small sketchbooks.

Hope that helps!

-Kalli.

#3 · December 31, 2024, 7:58 am

Quote from Draig Gnividyks on December 31, 2024, 7:58 am
Yep, the XP Pen is the best! Exactly what I was going to recommend. When I went to college the school used Cintiques which are expensive as he double hockey sticks, but are really nice. The XP Pen is every bit as good as the Cintique at a fraction of the price and has features I like better and lots of accessories. My only complaint about it was that it seemed to be designed more for left hand rather than right because of the cable placement, but it’s really no big issue, that’s for us OCD types that like to have our cables going a certain way on our desktop. I have since bought two of them.
highlh recommended.

also a guy on YouTube bought a bunch of tablets and tested them all out, their fav is the XP-Pen too, and that’s why I bought it.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the best times to buy, but check out Alibaba, DHGate, EBay, and AliExpress they might have better offers. Or simply get from XP-Pen website.
I recommend using with both an AMD and Nvidia Graphics card, yes it is possible, and having AMD be primary and run OpenCL while having the Nvidia focus simply on Cuda tasks works great. Depending on what renderer using OpenCL is faster, but Cuda looks much better. Sometimes I’ll get a fast render with OpenCL and then a slow render with Cuda and blend or simply enhance the OpenCL render.

sorry, got a little carried away.
I really like the xp pen,

the color is really good and the sensitivity is far superior when comparing with cintique.
however, for 4k viewing, simply use another monitor and then do the hd or 2K tasks with the xp pen, if on a budget.

it all depends on what type of machine you are using, but any computer with an hdmi should work with an XP pen. If running Ubuntu, it’s kinda difficult as the drivers are more compatible with windows.

TLDR

XP Pen

the Wacom Cintique is nice but the XP-Pen is better. I bought an XP-Pen when had free access to a computer and render lab with Wacoms. I learned on a Wacom though.

Yep, the XP Pen is the best! Exactly what I was going to recommend. When I went to college the school used Cintiques which are expensive as he double hockey sticks, but are really nice. The XP Pen is every bit as good as the Cintique at a fraction of the price and has features I like better and lots of accessories. My only complaint about it was that it seemed to be designed more for left hand rather than right because of the cable placement, but it’s really no big issue, that’s for us OCD types that like to have our cables going a certain way on our desktop. I have since bought two of them.
highlh recommended.

also a guy on YouTube bought a bunch of tablets and tested them all out, their fav is the XP-Pen too, and that’s why I bought it.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the best times to buy, but check out Alibaba, DHGate, EBay, and AliExpress they might have better offers. Or simply get from XP-Pen website.
I recommend using with both an AMD and Nvidia Graphics card, yes it is possible, and having AMD be primary and run OpenCL while having the Nvidia focus simply on Cuda tasks works great. Depending on what renderer using OpenCL is faster, but Cuda looks much better. Sometimes I’ll get a fast render with OpenCL and then a slow render with Cuda and blend or simply enhance the OpenCL render.

sorry, got a little carried away.
I really like the xp pen,

the color is really good and the sensitivity is far superior when comparing with cintique.
however, for 4k viewing, simply use another monitor and then do the hd or 2K tasks with the xp pen, if on a budget.

it all depends on what type of machine you are using, but any computer with an hdmi should work with an XP pen. If running Ubuntu, it’s kinda difficult as the drivers are more compatible with windows.

TLDR

XP Pen

the Wacom Cintique is nice but the XP-Pen is better. I bought an XP-Pen when had free access to a computer and render lab with Wacoms. I learned on a Wacom though.

Kallias Dornan has reacted to this post.

#4 · December 31, 2024, 8:05 am