USB drawing pen/pad recomendations?

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Genolution

Guest
Drawing with a mouse is quite akward. I'm wanting to up my game in the art department and was wondering if you needed to spend a lot of money to get a decent one. I'm just a hobbyist and money is always tight. Please share your thoughts, suggestions and experiences because I know nothing.
 
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Rukiri

Guest
Wacom Bamboo is pretty cheap, but if you can afford it (save up) get the new tablet "not the screen or tablet pcs" you can draw digitally and on paper, it's $399-$550 for the medium and large respectively tho... Ebay is another good source if you want a recent Wacom second hand.
 
G

Genolution

Guest
I see a Monoprice 10"x6.25" for $45 on Amazon. Thats pretty big for the money, has a high sensitivity rating and it has a bunch of customizable buttons. What do you think?
 

Tsa05

Member
I don't know much about monoprice except the name, but I can vouch for good experiences with Wacom, Huion, and XP-Pen. XP-Pen is a little more than $45, but far less than a Wacom.
 
G

Genolution

Guest
I pulled the trigger on the Monoprice tablet. It's getting good reviews on Amazon and YouTube. I'll give it a couple of weeks and post my thoughts on it. Now I just need to decide if I want to upgrade to studio 2.0. I've tried nearly a dozen drawing programs the last few days and the sprite editor on 1.4 would be perfect for me with all the features I need and none of the clutter except it doesnt have a curved line tool. Or does it and I just cant find it?
 

Coded Games

Member
I can also recommend the Wacom Bamboo tablet. It is getting a bit old now and mine got completely destroyed playing Osu! Although, if you're just drawing it should work fine.
 
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Dave-E

Guest
I'm using a Wacom Intuos pro. I liked my old Intuos 4 better- it had small screens next to the buttons that displayed what they were currently set to.
 
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Walky

Guest
For anyone looking for a good budget tablet:

I got a Huion H610 Pro V2 for 52 Euros on an AliExpress sale a few months ago, it has a battery-free pen, tilt sensitivity, 8192 pressure levels and a 10" x 6.25" working area. It's absolutely on another level compared to my 15+ years old Wacom Graphire 2.

I'm sure any Wacom with similar specs will have a better build quality and drivers, but the price is easily going to be 3 times as much for very similar functionality.
 
I bought a Wacom Cintiq because of the proven build quality and drivers. After my Wacom Graphire lasted me like a decade (still works), I figured I'd stick with the industry standard. About two years later, I'm glad I did. Still going strong, and the tablet itself is great, obviously!
 
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heshang

Guest
Drawing with a mouse is quite akward. I'm wanting to up my game in the art department and was wondering if you needed to spend a lot of money to get a decent one. I'm just a hobbyist and money is always tight. Please share your thoughts, suggestions and experiences because I know nothing.
Unless you need the very high end features of an Intuos - I'm talking tilt sensitive pen - I can highly recommend XP-Pen. If you will work in Photoshop and do drawings the tilt shift function could be pretty need of the Intuos. However for 3D applications, it would be useless .

I heard that xp-pen release " deco pro "drawing tablet which support 60 degrees of pen tilt function . compatible with Windows/ Mac / Android 6.0 OS .

I was able to get a 10"x6" draw area / 8K Pressure Levels wireless/wired graphics tablet XP-Pen Star 06 for a fraction of the price of a Wacom. I've had it for about six months and its worked flawlessly. I've sold my Intuos now.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
I have a decade-old Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet that I've used on an on-and-off basis. It works OK, but starting with Windows 7 the driver would sometimes refuse to start unless you manually reset the configuration file. More recent models will most likely have this patched. So if you do get a Wacom, avoid the second-hand stuff unless you can tell it's a recent model.

Wacom Bamboo is pretty cheap, but if you can afford it (save up) get the new tablet "not the screen or tablet pcs" you can draw digitally and on paper, it's $399-$550 for the medium and large respectively tho... Ebay is another good source if you want a recent Wacom second hand.
I'm actually considering the tablet PC route for an upcoming purchase. Since you specifically recommended against it, I would like to know more about your side of the story. Did you actually have a bad experience with digitizers on tablet PCs and touch screens, and if so what kinds of problem are they?

I will be using a stylus interface, so the obvious quality drawbacks of "finger-painting" wouldn't be an issue for me.
 
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wkaudio

Guest
I'm actually considering the tablet PC route for an upcoming purchase. Since you specifically recommended against it, I would like to know more about your side of the story. Did you actually have a bad experience with digitizers on tablet PCs and touch screens, and if so what kinds of problem are they?

I will be using a stylus interface, so the obvious quality drawbacks of "finger-painting" wouldn't be an issue for me.
I don't really have a full review, but I have a work-issued Surface Pro 4 that I installed photoshop and Krita on for drawing and I love it. I use the official Surface Pen and I've had no issues other than the general power of the machine.
 
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Walky

Guest
For anyone looking for a good budget tablet:

I got a Huion H610 Pro V2 for 52 Euros on an AliExpress sale a few months ago, it has a battery-free pen, tilt sensitivity, 8192 pressure levels and a 10" x 6.25" working area. It's absolutely on another level compared to my 15+ years old Wacom Graphire 2.

I'm sure any Wacom with similar specs will have a better build quality and drivers, but the price is easily going to be 3 times as much for very similar functionality.
Just wanted to add that it has survived my cats stepping on it and bending it as they please (it has corner feet only). One thing I don't like is that the pen holder is not a perfect fit for the pen's shape so it's continuously being knocked over by feline beasts (actually, just one, since we had to put our other cat to sleep a week ago due to severe kidney failure :().
 
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