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[Eddie 88]

I used to be an okay draw-er when I was a kid. I'd draw a lot of Mega Man X bosses. Not the actual ones, but ones I'd make up. Let's see if I can remember some...Razor Baracudda...Blaze Fireant...lame stuff, heh. But the point is, I could draw halfway decently something that I could just dream up from my head. I can't do that anymore, though

One big barrier to rekindling that modest talent is materia. I only have regular paper and regular pencils. I tried using those fancy manga pens once on some fancy paper, but I couldn't get the hang of it, and I don't have a disposable income so I can't just constantly be blowing money on materials. Also, I'm a perfectionist and erase 90% of what I've drawn every five friggin' seconds.

I'm thinking I might be able to develop some decent-ish talent (at least to do Adventure Time-esque or Pusheen-ish noodle arm doodle art) if I used a ~ TABLET ~! 'cause I'd be able to Undo and shift stuff around and morph lines and all that good stuff. 'cause I sure as hell ain't churning out anything decent-looking without those sorts of tricks.

But obvs, if I can't be blowing lots of money on a constant stream of materials, I can't be blowing lots of money on a super-expensive drawing tablet. I think I'm probably just gonna mainly dick around in SAI or my pirated version of Photoshop 6 from 2002, lol.

So...any suggestions? Or rather, can anyone gimme a mini-primer on drawing tablets? 'cause a cursory Google shows prices ranging from ~$50 to ~$1500. I don't just wanna nab a cheap one and have no idea what I'm getting into, but obviously I'm not a professional drawmin, so I'm not willing to sink a major investment into this.

I guess all I need it to do is, uh...work. I don't think pressure-sensitivity is an absolute requirement. It'd be nice if the tablet itself had some programmable buttons, so I can hotkey Undo and such, without having to mess with the keyboard. If there were a way to manipulate the canvas from the tablet, too (rotate, zoom) without having to use the keyboard, that'd be awesome as well. But if those features drive the price up into the hundreds, forget it.

Thanks! ^_^

[Akima]

What Jeph has to say on the subject.

All I have to say on the subject is "Buy a Wacom", because the quality is good, and the software support is solid. Jeph refers to Wacom's "Bamboo" range. I think they've rebranded the Bamboo range as Intuos, and the what used to be the Intuos range is now called Intuos Pro. Both ranges have pressure-sensitivity and varying levels of programmable functions.

Wacom's web-site has an annoying layout.

[Eddie 88]

Ooh, thanks. Forgot about that.

I'm not convinced that drawing is a skill and not a talent like he says, though. I had art lessons in junior high (by which time I'd already lost my modest youthful ability in that regard) and they didn't help remotely.

My problem is that I can't visualize something, and draw it out of thin air. I can look at a picture and reasonably imitate it, because all the lines and perspective and porportions are there. I've done some manga stuff like that, I did some Adventure Time Halloween fanart awhile back that was actually pretty good. But no matter what I see in my mind, I can't just...put to paper, from nothing.

I feel like that's an inborn talent. Something with the visual-spatial part of your brain or something. I dunno...