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Posted: July 24, 2012

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Noob advice trying to get into digital art

~DarkLeafCreations Jul 24, 2012

Ok so i've done all kinds of hobbies, but never was any good at drawing or painting kinda mediocre when i took classes in high school and college just rudimentary crap. Or maybe I just gave up on it too fast idk either way i'd like to try to get back into it. So many ideas screaming to be put into paper/digitalized.

Been digging on internets found a great resource site to teach DA basics on PS [link] hopefully it'll help fill some holes in my knowledge which is pretty basic not very deep.

Yes I'm insane I'm seriously thinking about getting a wacom right off the bat (hey fun tools are fun damnit) Amazon has intuos 4s for about $250 and the intuos 5 is about $350 [link] but it says it comes with free software.

[link]

Intuos 5 medium is probably the most I can afford. FOr the monitor I'll be using either a 17" or a 23/24" monitor next payday. MY PC I just built recently - I have an intel I5 2320 CPU(3ghz quad) a msi 560gtx GPU, 8 gigs ram, gigabyte z77x-ud3h mobo, and 4 TB of harddrives so plenty of space for pictures.

Has anyone bought a intuos 5 yet or have they compared them to the 4? I have a friend whose into art school stuff he has a 4 and he loves it. He recommends it to me, but if the 5 is pretty much the same and comes with all that software wouldn't it be better to shell out the extra $100? Thanx in advanced

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!lemon1986 Jul 28, 2012

get the intuos4, the only difference between it and it's predecessor is the touch function and trust me you will not like it!

starting at $130 comparing to $211 for the small size intuos5. thats not a difference you will simply ignore, no one will! except the newbies which sadly I happened to be one of them!

one of the most hated thing about the intuos5 is the button, it takes quite effort to push it, I mean not that huge effor but can be annoying when you're serious about finishing your piece, I don't know about the intuos4 though..

~DarkLeafCreations Jul 26, 2012

aside from wacom.com is there another website that sells good priced wacom stuff maybe older surplus or the like. I mean I'm tempted to use amazon, I just don't know if the "New" intuos 4's amazon has listed come with any software, or if that only applies to the current 5s.

~MattCombsArt Jul 25, 2012

i dont know how your art is to make a good judgement on investing into a $100 or $350 tablet. But i would recommend anyone getting into their 1st tablet and wanting to mess with it. I would suggest to spend the least amount of money at 1st. So getting the bamboo capture will be a good start. You dont need the pen with the eraser on the end(Since you can just click the hot key to switch to an eraser.) or the extra programs. the create does come with
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Nik Color Efex Pro WE3
Autodesk Sketchbook Express
Evernote.
Its probably a smarter idea to get a cheaper one to get the feel for it, then at a later point when you have got use to it, then investing into a more expensive tablet.

Ive also found sketching with the tablet is a waste of time, i find it a lot faster and cleaner to just sketch on paper then scan that in to paint it with my tablet, i only paint with my tablet, i never sketch with it, i find it lacks accuracy. So thats something you might consider

your next big issues going to be getting photoshop, alot of people say not to get it cause its pricey. But thats the main program professionals use so learning that is a must if your going to be getting a job as an artist for a company in the future. See if your friend can hook u up with a copy of ps to get ur feet wet with it. The program will be the biggest hurdle youll run into with the tablet. You dont need to know the program in and out but at least learning the basics will help a lot. Also setting the pen pressures so they can be used within the program is a must.

since your new to it, i would buy the cheaper tabet then try to invest or (get) a copy of a good painting program like ps or corel painter. without a good program you will not achieve the results your most likely looking for.

the bamboos are fine i used one for a long time before i bought a wacom cintiq.

~DarkLeafCreations Jul 25, 2012

Talking to a person who at the start of the year blew 800 bucks on magic the gathering cards lol income tax.(hey it was a new card shop i've seen many I grew attached to open get people get busy then bam close in a year cause people came in hung out but never dropped a dime. So I threw money at them I still do with pathfinder books and anime/manga. Rather its a manga/anime store that carries card games and has open space for RPGS but semantics.)

I spend extra money I have on enjoyment its this or buy another TV,xbox 360 or ps3 and then the extra crap you need controllers stands chargers and finally the games. But honestly I think art would be more productive, then playing demon souls. I'd have something tangible for the amount of time invested in said activity.

CINTIQ OMFG those things are like 2-5k each but they look sweet as hell. But it seems all the hardcore professional webcomic people I read daily/weekly seem to have cintiqs so they must be the best.

For the most part it'll be for fun, a way of expressing nightmares or strange thoughts after reading a novel/movie/pathfinder campaign with evil clowns, or the various monsters that lurk the corners of my mind. But If I by some chance start liking it and actually get better, then I'll see where it takes me.

I dont want the create for the eraser I want it cause I have big hands and the cheaper bamboos are 5.8" x 3.6"(20.88 sq") create is 5.4" x 8.5"(45.9 sq") so essentially double but still kind of a small size.

As where intuos5 touch are small - 6.2" x 3.9"(24.18 sq")a little bigger then the cheap bamboos, medium 8.8 x 5.5(48.4 sq") bout the same size as a intuos medium, large 12.8" x 8"(102.4 sq").

I'll spend as much as 400 Cheaper would be nice tbh 4's seem to be nicer looking then 5s because of the buttons on the side that change with what program you have running.

~MattCombsArt Aug 4, 2012

haha ya games sometimes distract me also lol, but ya i hear you, better to buy that then something related to gaming. If money isnt an issue for the cost of the tablets then i would just get the intuous 4 medium youll save about $100 then buying the 5, the 4 would be just fine. with the tablet i would for now just sketch on paper then scan/bring that into a painting program to finish painting it. It will make it easier for your work load im thinking. I find sketching with my tablet not to have the same control as drawing on paper. I can work faster by just sketching on paper, painting with the tablet is amazing, i just dont like sketching with it. But i mostly as of now dont paint with holding lines, so i can just do a fast sketch bring that into photoshop and paint it like i would traditionally. you should post some of your work in the future so we can check it out, best of luck with ur tablet adventures

~DarkLeafCreations Aug 4, 2012

Well I fell off the boat or jumped into the deep end, which ever Ya'll want to call it and Bought an INTUOS 4 LARGE- new amazon$285. ($319 after 1 day shipping lol) Maybe not quite a starving artist but I'll damn sure be eating a lotta ramen and chef boyardee for 2 weeks

. Because well the medium was only 25 bucks less and I'd think that the large would have more accurate drawings/sketches probably more to a 1:1 scale.

It was new so i got to download these programs
Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 10
Autodesk® SketchBook® Express - I had downloaded the pro version with a 15 day trial so thats what i was playing with yesterday when I had free time.
Corel® Painter™ Sketch Pad
Nik® Color Efex Pro™ 3 WE6
Wacom® Brushes 3

nik and wacom brushes seem to be plugins for PS, but all that PS elements seems to be is A photo organizer and photo editor... but honestly I don't want to do either cause I don't really care about photos atm.

I hear everyone say they do all these things in PS, just probably not this version thank god I didn't actually buy elements. Or maybe I'm just not looking at it in the right areas but all it appears to be is a photo storage/manipulator.

Played around with sketchbook pro, its probably more what I want to do with this tablet. I just need to find the right pressure levels and all that junk related to the pen. That and find some tutorials and spend a few hours reading them and using the tools. Well actually the corel painter thing is pretty cool too I'll have to find instructionals instead of just going in blind.

!snoballs-luv Jul 26, 2012

Cintiqs are not the ultimate to be of the tablet. I heard about few professionals who got Cintiq, hated it, and switched back to Intuos or even Graphire, the tablet series that sold before Bamboo series got launched. There is no good and bad tablet; it's just up to the artist's preference.

=Holly-Mellor Jul 25, 2012 Hobbyist Digital Artist

If your only just starting out and really want to start right with digital painting. I would suggest getting a lower wacom model, such as the bamboo. They are specifically designed for the beginner niche, and they are excellent for starting points, not only in price but quality too! As someone has stated above, pen and paper is always a great way to start learning basics.

~DarkLeafCreations Jul 28, 2012

Ya know I think I'll take yalls advice, and get a bamboo I get paid next thursday so I'll just have to wait till then. Create looks nice and at $200 it aint a bad price thats what I think I'll probably get. It has alotta programs that look interesting, and I'm also pretty sure you can upgrade the PS elements to cs6 for an upgrade cost right?

What I hope to eventually accomplish is to be able to draw fantasy stuff, Dragons, fairies,I'd like to be able to sketch and draw/paint D&D characters(like say a wood elf Ranger and their tiger animal companion) to go with stories I think of when I'm bored at work er slaving for the evil empire. Also nature landscapes to make all the drawings fit in with the fantasy theme.

As an avid gamer I'd also love to be able to make mock ups of my characters from the different MMO's I've played over the years. MMO's eat life and at the end you have nothing to show for it. With a picture I drew with my own hands, I could at least hope to capture the memory of fun times I had for so many years.

And possibly manga/anime characters yes I know ambitious dreams, but dreams are what keep us sane they're what we hope to some day do.

The create says it comes with this (Software DVD (containing Autodesk SketchBook Express, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Corel Painter Essentials, and Nik Color Filters)

Alot of people have said paint sai, and corel paint which seems expensive as hell, PS hopefully Elements will be enough to start with, Gimp i've used it before for photo resizing but nothing else I might give it a look at. IS there any other programs that'll be good or is that a pretty comprehensive list?

!snoballs-luv Jul 29, 2012

Since you're starting out I recommend opencanvas 5.5 because they have a function where you can replay other people's art. I learned a lot from it when I just got into digital art.

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