Hi guys! I have always dreamed of getting into digital art from a young age but never actually achieved this. Lately I’ve been yearning to take up a hobby and decided to try and make this childhood goal come true!

I am looking to buy a nice tablet with a wonderfully responsive pen, and I know nothing of them. I’ve been watching videos on suggestions and such and reading comments, but still struggling to decide.

What hardware do you use? ie: laptop/tablet combo, ios tablet, Microsoft tablet, plug-in tablet. What brand? What pen? Do you do anything special to make the performance better? ie: place a matte screen protector on your screen for a different textured experience with the pens. Have you tried multiple options and have a favorite?

Please share below! I want to weigh all my options and I won’t worry about price atm until I get enough input!

i use a wacom intuos and like it a lot! before that i had a wacom bamboo for 9 years which still works fine c: it's been dropped, had water spilled on it, had the cable chewed... it's built like a tank lmao

the thing i definitely had to adapt to is that the intuos is a lot more sensitive, i got used to having to apply more pressure with the bamboo and at first went through like 2 or 3 intuos nibs in a matter of months asdfghjkl i know i could get one of those things to put on the table to give it more 'grip' but i'm stingy and hate spending money

my laptop is a lenovo z50 which is not great since the screen doesn't render colours as well as i'd like (it makes everything kind of blue-ish) but like. it's not a big deal, i can work around it

program-wise i used paint tool sai for ages but switched to clip studio paint and haven't gone back to sai since, save for sometimes needing some brushes i haven't figured out how to recreate in csp haha

best of luck with starting digital art! it's kind of intimidating at first but it gets easier over time (´･∀･`)

Hi Patience ^o^

What hardware do you use?

• AMD Ryzen 5 2400G with Radeon Vega Graphics 3.60 GHz
• 16 GB installed RAM
• Microsoft Windows 10 (64 Bit), Dekstop PC
• 11 USB-Ports (3 of them are for 3.0 USB)
• Captiva E1701 monitor (I use this one since 2004 and it's still working and large enough for me)

What brand? + What pen? I use my Wacom Intuos Pro M with Wacom Pro Pen 2 since 2019. Before this time I was having a TRUST graphic tablet back from 2004-2007 and then it didn't work anymore. But it was wa~y cheaper (~80€) back this time.

The nibs are in a pen holder - 7 standard black nibs and 3 felt gray nibs. I must say that I prefer the felt nibs because I think they're aren't rough as the standard ones. Sadly I only have the standard nibs left, because the degree of wear was high for the felt nibs. As I use them often during my digital drawing lessons during my schooling from 2018-2021. I still use a standard nib since over 1 year, but need to remove it asap.

Do you do anything special to make the performance better? Nope. I was never a friend of screen protector. Even for my consoles nor handhelds. I dislike the residues of glue on my things so I don't use them. One of my N64 controllers has a controller sticker and I also used stickers on my N64 too from 1998-2005. But after this time I removed them and the whole console looks dirty of the glue residues. I won't have this ugly option on my GT too.

Have you tried multiple options and have a favorite? To be honest I only have one screen and only one PC. So I don't have many options to draw digital. Only one. I also prefer to work on PCs because it's more comfortable to sit on a chair in front of your desk. You also have a good upright posture while working.

The TRUST GT I was having back before the 2010s, was also fine working for me for many years. The pen was working with one or two small batteries. The GT was having a protection screen like a sheet of paper. I'm not sure if it was really a protecion screen of just a option to put a sheet of paper under the protecton screen and to draw the traditional one into digital. But I wish my current GT would have such a screen protection because it's without glue.

As I first bought a GT I was doing research for months. Because I always heard that the Wacom GTs are the best. But they was too expensive for me back this time and I was looking for a cheaper GT, but with a big drawing space. During my schooling we was always using the GTs from the school when we was drawing in class. But as we had to work on bigger projects, I decided to buy my own GT (and because my school was only having older Wacom GTs in size S). Like a book. I also decided to buy a Wacom GT because I remember of my old TRUST GT and that it didn't worked anymore after few years. That was very annoying for me. I think that every GT works, even the cheaper ones. You doesn't need to buy "high end" stuff, but maybe you have the option to try out different GTs from friends? ^^

2015 15" Macbook Pro. This is admittedly something I've always bought, I find screens easier to read on the larger laptops since I don't use a desktop so I've personally always paid more for the 15" MacBook Pro. Otherwise, in terms of specs for the laptop itself, 16 GB of ram, 512 GB hard drive.

and in terms of tablets:

Intuos Pro, bought in 2019 when my old Intuos 5 just randomly stopped working. It's the medium size. and 11" iPad pro with Apple pencil 2 which I use more these days just because it's there and more convenient. I had the iPad Pro original model, 12.9 with the first iteration iPad pencil but gave that to my mom when I upgraded my iPad pro to the second iteration 11".

I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 2017 and use the same kind of pen that came with it. But I do have different nibs that I change from time to time when one breaks.

Do you do anything special to make the performance better? No. I clean the screen sometimes :')

Have you tried multiple options and have a favorite? Yes. I had a bamboo pen and touch forever before this. It was the basicist basic drawing thing you could have and it was great for starting off. But I used it for 10 years lol. I did start improving a lot faster with the surface pro and being able to draw on what I was seeing helped. And I think just the quality overall was better with that kind of upgrade obviously lol. And that pushed me to do more tutorials and get better that way too. But I also use this as a laptop, use it to make videos, and whatnot as well. I can do pretty much anything on it (except game lol) so it's been super handy for me.

I use an XP-PEN 15.6 pro, and it's super reliable! it was a lot cheaper than the other tablets on the market and it works just as well, just be sure if u get a screen tablet to invest in a protector; I didn't and it bit me in the butt 💀

As a first mention - don't over invest in a tablet before you are sure you like digital art. The cheap basic ones work fine and work forever.

I am using a Wacom Intuos Art Small Pen and Touch, their old version. It's a mini tablet technically. No screen. Aside from vaguelly damaged cable, which is on me, it works same as when I bought it. If you are heavy handed you will go tru quite a few nibs tho. If you tend to break your pencil lead, you may find yourself using all the extras that come in then buying some extra tips.

I use is on a desktop pc but all this shamangle has no influence on how I am using it. It's simply a gaming pc that I happen to also draw on.

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor 3.40 GHz RAM 16.0 gb I use my tablet in linux - lubuntu , but works fine on my windows 10 (my art program is in linux). As a mention tablets seem to lose pressure sensitivity sometimes in windows, but never happened to me in linux. It's a software issue. Monitor - it was cheap and dim and has a gray undertonne, you don't want it