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Wacom tablet for pixel art?

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PSNick:
Hello!

I'm looking to venture into the pixel art world and was wondering something that has been asked several times before for sure, but wanted to ask myself anyway after extensive search with varied results (as expected); I hope you won't mind. Do you use and/or recommend a tablet for Pixel Art?

I'm looking to create assets in the like of Risk of Rain, though I have never made any pixel art work. I have mostly worked on Photo Manips and some Digital Art which you can see here, and I probably can't draw a stick figure even if my life depended on it, though I hope with some practice simpler pixel art might be achievable until I can make something like the previous screenshot.

The one I was eyeing is the Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch (Small), since it seems to be affordable and I doubt the extra features that come with the higher end tablets will be very useful for pixel art. What do you think about the size by the way?

While I'm at it, i may as well ask which software you use as well. I have seen many possibilities from ProMotion for the more professional maybe, to GraphicsGale and Grafx2 or GIMP and Photoshop. At the moment I'm thinking on sticking with Photoshop, but suggestions are always welcome.


Thank you very much for taking the time to read and reply, I really appreciate it!

Nick.

PsylentKnight:
I use GraphicsGale. Aseprite is another one I like, but it always screwed up my colors so I just became frustrated with it and switched to GraphicsGale. The main advantage of Aseprite is that you can export gifs (you can't in the free version of GG). My way around this in GG is to export the individual frames of the animation and use this. I know, I know, Myspace. But its the thing I've found that works the best. Just makes sure you save the gif immediately, because Myspace only hosts it for like 24 hours or something.

As for a tablet, I use one and I love it. I consider it necessary for seriously doing any kind of art on the computer.

EDIT: Fixed link

rikfuzz:
When it comes to pixel art, I personally use the tablet a lot less, though it's still useful.  To be honest, with Risk of Rain assets, I'd probably use only mouse, they're so small.

(For the larger profile images, of course I'd use a tablet for though, like this: http://www.yoyogames.com/images/pages/showcase/risk_of_rain/showcase_ror_screen2.png)

I still pretty much use photoshop exclusively. 

Ai:
GrafX2 is great IME. You can use Photoshop or GIMP for pixel art, but IMO these are best relegated to very particular kinds of operations. Using  a dedicated pixelart app for most of your pixelart stuff saves time setting up and avoids showing options that are ultimately pretty irrelevant to pixel art -- of which there are many. Some features -- like tile autocompletion -- are only found in pixel-art specific apps.

A tablet is worth it for pixel art, but I recommend also experimenting with non-pixel-art (eg CG or ink, with MyPaint, Krita, or Photoshop) -- tablets are very versatile, building up your skills in other areas will help your pixelart skills, and experimenting is VASTLY quicker with a tablet than basically anything else I've ever tried.

I don't know what the recent Intuos are like. I recall finding my previous Graphire to be very slippery and challenging to control, and upon switching to my current Monoprice tablet, I was much more comfortable with the level of friction imparted (I would characterize it as 'drawing on a whiteboard' versus the Graphire's 'skating on glass'). In any case, all tablets I know of have relatively low friction levels, so it's quite different from drawing on paper.

Pen tip also is a factor in inertia, and I understand that you get a few different tips with modern Intuos packages, so you may want to experiment there. Naturally, the more friction, the quicker the tip wears down; but you may find this useful to ease into developing the finer control you will need to draw using a more frictionless tip.

yrizoud:
For tiny pixel-levels details, you'd rather use a mouse : It's less stressful for your hand to point at specific pixels, and you gain a lot of time by having useful functions on different buttons : For example middle button to zoom in/out or drag view, right button to paint with a second color, or clear to transparency, or color-pick.

If you can't draw (human anatomy, geometry of volumes, perspective, principles of animation) your pixel art will quickly show its limits, though. You'll only improve by studying and practicing. Some mediums are better than others for improving different aspects : Pixel art is fine for colors, but for example for human anatomy, you'd rather practice with sketching on paper.

Investing in a tablet is never going to be a waste if you're doing photo manipulations anyway, because it will give you pressure sensitivity for a lot of tools.
And a tablet is great for extending your artistic world, because you can load up Krita or MyPaint and discover and practice :
- pencils and charcoals
- India ink
- Watercolors
- traditional painting
All this without paying the expensive art furnitures, the ink stains on your fingers, the canvas frames filling your house!

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