Wacom tablet for pixel art?

[LarkoftheRiver]

The great thing about Wacom is.. Free software! They put in several programs for you to try in most tablets (I got Photoshop, Corel, Anime Studio, and others with both my Bamboo and Intous) so once you get it go to the Wacom site and download them all. I don't think specific pixel programs are included, but its fun to try out the different programs and find the one suited for yourself.

[Ai]

Even for doing the CG version of traditional art, I'd recommend to try Krita or MyPaint : They propose individual tools "Watercolor", "Large ink pen" etc. which is much more handy than having to customize Photoshop's single "brush" to reach the same behavior.

Actually this is false: For both Krita and MyPaint, brushes near-entirely determine the painting behaviour. The only 'special tools' are precision-related: eg. drawing straight lines, connected straight lines, curves, ellipses or boxes; they affect only the (virtual) pressure and location that the brush is applied with.

Photoshop (or GIMP) actually has *more* individual tools for different  paint types than Krita and Mypaint : Pen/Ink, Smudge, etc.. which are all just part of 'the brush system's of Krita and MyPaint. Personally this is why I find Krita and especially MyPaint's painting more approachable and understandable than other apps.


LarkoftheRiver:
It should be noted that it's also the case that a number of the programs proposed here are free or have a trial version :

Free: MyPaint, Krita, GIMP, GrafX2, MTPaint, Aseprite
Trial: GraphicsGale

It may be getting slightly OT but Blender could also be put on the Free list -- I've been finding recently it's great for constructing refs of 3d forms or even text -- with the large arrays of addons and non-destructive modifiers that can be applied to an object, I think of it as a kind of 3d inkscape in terms of it's capability for constructing clean/consistent mockups; With BLAM, it's possible to directly match the camera setup to the camera of your drawing. Also Inkscape itself, which is more on the drawing side than painting.

While I'm being excessively complete -- the GIMP-GAP suite of plugins for GIMP I have also found extremely handy for constructing animations. It's video-oriented, so you have to keep in mind that you don't 'set frame time' -- you just duplicate frames if you want them to show longer, and the actual time frames are shown for is determined by the FPS.  Pretty suitable for longer or more ambitious animations (eg, if you want a scrolling background with objects animating in front of it..)

[Kasumi]

It's worth noting the Aseprite is no longer exactly free.
You can download an older (and very stable) version for free. (I recommend it!)
It is also open source, so if you know how to compile things, you can get the latest version for free.
Or you can just buy it.

It is the only software I know that is paid-open source, heh.

[PsylentKnight]

Ah, that's a new development since I used it first. As I recall, it was totally free then, but I guess that was about a year ago. Damn, time flies.

Maybe the paid version has fixed the color issues I was referring to.

[EvilEye]

I highly recommend a small tablet ( I use a small size Intuos 3 ) if you will be doing any serious artwork.

Yes you can use a mouse for small scale stuff, but even for that a tablet will make things easier. For years when I first discovered I could draw stuff on the computer I used a mouse. Actually back in those days I don't know if there were tablets.

I got my current Intuos 3 off ebay for about 70$ used. It's the smallest size which I recommend actually. The larger sizes are more expensive and also more cumbersome to use IMO. So unless you can't afford 70$ I don't see why you wouldn't pick up a tablet.

[PSNick]

Well, apparently due to the lovely way my country works I can't import the tablet so it's being returned and I'm getting a refund.

Problem is, the Pen & Touch isn't available to buy here, I can only buy the Intuos Pro (or better) which instead of being at $250 is at $400. I'm considering buying it, but it's more than i thought I'd pay for something I'm not sure how much I'll use. It's just a little rant; I'll post again once i'm sure.

Nick.

[9_6]

Can you not et the bamboo one?

[PSNick]

Well, technically they do have a very small selection of them, but they're around $350-380 when the Intuos Pro is $400, so it makes absolutely no sense to buy them.

I just bought one in Argentina (Intuos Pro Small) and it should arrive to my city in a week, hopefully with no trouble

[PSNick]

Apologies for the double post, but i just wanted to tell everyone i got my tablet yesterday and today i gave it a try with "speed" painting following Eddie on Digital Tutors, and here it is:



I know there's lots to learn, and using the tablet feels a bit weird for now, but i'm feeling confident and motivated

Once again, i'd like to thank everyone for their comments and suggestions, they were more useful than you think!

Nick.

[jalonso67]

I use mouse for Pixel modification with Photoshop and illustrators. I also use a very cheap XP-PEN ( https://www.xp-pen.com ) tablet for some painting. In My opinion, The tablet is very easy to use and very precise in a lot of situation(e.g selection tool etc.) and once you get use to the tablet it is like drawing on a piece of paper.
But you can work anything out with your mouse like pixel art creation and other stuff. it just harder and more work. If you just use for pixal art and want to save money then you don't really need tablet. but if you do more like comic and speed painting then i would say yes to get a tablet for sure.