Best drawing tablet for a beginner?

November 27, 2019 4:49 AM

My 11 year old loves watching Odd 1s Out and Jaiden Animation and would like a drawing tablet for Christmas to do some of their own animations. I am hoping to keep the price point limited to $100 and would love your recommendations. FWIW we have an Adobe Creative Suite subscription that they would have access to but we are also willing to invest in some software and would welcome recommendations for software as well.
posted by a22lamia to Technology (7 answers total)

Monoprice's tablets are excellent value for money.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:17 AM on November 27, 2019 [2 favorites]

I've had versions of the Wacom Intuos and enjoyed them. I find it helpful to get a drawing glove with open fingers so you can pinch/zoom/rotate but still have smooth hand glide across the tablet. (Also check settings because I ended up making my drawing area smaller because I have tiny hands and did more fine-wrist movements. And pay attention to options like line smoothing. Photoshop has line smoothing options.)

I also enjoyed Affinity Designer because it has a vector and bitmap style platforms. So you can do curves and edit them for movement and you can do a lot of Photoshop style coloring and editing on the same file. I've used ArtRage and and Photoshop as well with my Wacom.

(In the end I went with a iPad and Apple Pencil which was around $450. I mostly use ProCreate. But I also expensed it and used it for products for sale and I'm a big kid* . I still keep the Wacom around. But keep the iPad options in mind possibly for down the line if they get more into it. *Read: Adult Human)
posted by Crystalinne at 6:23 AM on November 27, 2019

Consider subscribing to the Humble Bundle newsletter. They periodically have great software bundles built around a theme. Video & audio creation, digital art, game creation, etc. The current Corel Painter bundle isn't geared specifically toward animation, but it has a lot of great software and add-ons for $25.
posted by xedrik at 6:45 AM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

I'm an amateur artist with a tablet and I swear by Krita, which is an open-source drawing program with a great UI (and support for animation)! I've been out of the Adobe-verse for a few years so I'm not sure how it compares to contemporary Photoshop, but it reminds me more of old-school Painter, but without the natural-media-simulating engines.

As far as hardware goes, agree with Monoprice in terms of value for money. I have an Intuos and a bottom-end Cintiq and I love both of them, but they're both too spendy for your budget. If you're open to used devices, check Craigslist or FB Marketplace? I bought my Intuos on Craigslist for about 50% of list, from an art student selling it at the end of a semester!
posted by Alterscape at 8:15 AM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

For most of my life, I've used Microsoft Paint and a mouse to do digital art. But recently, I received a big-girl design tablet, and I don't think I can ever go back. I still don't really know what I'm doing, but I recommend the Wacom One as a good place to start! It's fairly inexpensive and small, but I'm really impressed with its durability and functionality. It registers different pressures, and the surface of it feels more like real paper (which is awesome if you're moving from traditional to digital art!). It works with Adobe and other programs (even Microsoft Paint), and the software for it is super easy to install.
posted by NewShoo at 9:31 AM on November 27, 2019 [1 favorite]

I got an open box Monoprice tablet, works fine. Good alternative to Wacom.
Magix has a black Friday sale, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer for $49. It is both a bitmap and vector drawing program. Been in development for 20+ years.
posted by Sophont at 3:13 PM on November 27, 2019

I agree with the answers here - Wacom is the industry leader and so those suggestions are good, but also alternatives from other brands are increasingly closing the gap. My credentials are that I bought my first Wacom tablet in 1999 and have had three or four different models, such as the Wacom Bamboo, since then. This Fall, I made the jump to a 16" Wacom Cintiq. The prices on the Cintiqs have finally come down enough for me to justify it. That being said, my job is being a graphic design and illustration professor, so I probably could have justified a Cintiq awhile back! I'm just a generally frugal sort.

I think there are a few different things you could consider. The Wacom One suggested above would be in your price range. If you have the 'Creative Cloud All Apps' plan, you should have Adobe Animate and Adobe Character Animate, which would certainly be powerful tools for a beginner to learn to make things like cartoons they admire. I think the basic thing a beginner needs would be some sort of 'onion skin' function, which is what lets an animator make their next frame be similar to their previous frame for smooth motion. Adobe Animate seems to have that. Disclaimer - I have not used Adobe Animate, but it sure looks like Adobe resurrected Flash for this app, and I used Flash professionally for a few years.

So, rather than buy software, I would consider two other options. One would be to see if you could find some instruction for your child. There might be a special summer class somewhere for kids to learn to animate. Maybe a library branch where you live has something? I see your profile lists Western Mass... maybe somewhere in North Hampton or Springfield there could be an animation class for tween/teens? Even if they don't learn how to use the specific software, it might make for a better start if they learn some basics, maybe even making a flipbook, to bolster their first forays into what can be a technical and labor-intensive process.

The other option is to see if you could save up and increase your budget. As someone who has been using pen tablets and drawing on the computer professionally for twenty years, I see a tipping point where drawing in one spot and looking in the other is becoming obsolete. In other words, the cost to entry for drawing directly on screen has finally come way down.

The key to that is the iPad. Apple now supports the Apple Pencil on the regular iPad model, and that support started with the last generation (iPad 6). The current regular iPad, which Crystalinne suggested, is $329 new. That's not cheap certainly, but considering Wacom Cintiqs, which are the other alternative, used to be $2500, that's amazing! They're currently sold out, but iPad 6s are on offer from gazelle.com starting at $210. The Pencil is another $75. Maybe someone in the family would be willing to share an iPad with your child to kinda defray the cost.

I have a nine year old who also loves cartoons, video games and comics. She wanted to use my Wacom Bamboo as soon as she noticed me drawing with it, so she started fiddling with it when she was five. It was certainly fun for her to explore and she seemed to figure it out quickly. Recently, as I got my Wacom Cintiq, she has started to use my iPad and Apple Pencil. I think she likes that experience much more. I know from experience that being able to look at what you are drawing, while you are drawing it, is just more comfortable for the human brain.

Lastly, if the idea of drawing directly on screen does start to seem like a possibility, you could also investigate Wacom alternatives that are cheaper than Cintiqs. Brad Colbow is a pretty well-respected reviewer of digital drawing tools. He has a Web site and a YouTube channel where he reviews various drawing tablets, both screen and non-screen. He recommends the XP-Pen 12 Pro tablet ($250) as a lower-cost alternative to the Cintiqs. Here's his list with links to Amazon. With the XP-Pen tablet, your 11-year-old could draw directly on screen, but also still use the Creative Cloud software.

In any case, good luck!
posted by Slothrop at 5:24 AM on November 28, 2019 [3 favorites]