basically, i'm looking for a graphics tablet so i can start drawing a webcomic. the only problem is i dont know what size to go for, and i'm limited by my low budget (i'm aiming to keep it under £100, i'm not looking for perfection, just a good starting point.)
Good Graphics Tablets on a Budget
- Thread starter William MacKay
- Start date
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Pretty much what Zenron said. If you just want it for webcomic/fiddling around go for Bamboo, it will be more than enough for your needs. No point in getting something more fancy if you won't be able to use it's potential and actually earn some money off it.
thanks. i've used a Bamboo before (a friend has one) and i was just curious if there were better options.
Seconding (thirding? since I took ages to type this and got ninja'd) the bamboo recommendation. Some wacom suppliers, at least in the UK, have a selection of tablets in the store that they'll allow you to test out/try to get a feel for. Jacobs in particular sometimes do, and if not then they might have someone who's trained to answer any questions you have at least. There's a list of wacom suppliers on the official wacom website.
I'm a freelance concept artist and the medium bamboo works just fine for my work. There is initial difficulty in mentally connecting 'this part of tablet' to 'this part of screen' but after a few practice sketches it gets a lot more natural. The one thing I'd say to look out for with a bamboo is the nibs - they run down fairly quickly if you use them a lot. I go through one a month usually (with about 2-4 hours of use per day), though I've ended up wearing down two or three during extended 'oh dear I need to be working' time (with about 10-15 hours of constant use per day). You'll get 2 or 3 in the box with the tablet but after that you have to order them from the website and it can end up being a surprise expense.
If you're on a really, really tight budget, there's a model of wacom tablet called the volito 2. The work area is tiny tiny tiny but it's cheap (mine was £23 from tesco on offer a few years ago). I'm not 100% sure if it's still easily available but if it is it's cheap and usable. I did my freelance work with it for two years before I caved and upgraded to my current wacom.
My experience with non-wacom tablets hasn't been all that great. Trust tablets are cheap but I found the pens heavy and the tablets themselves unreliable. I had a TB-2100 (I think) that lasted me about 9 months, which was okay because it was very much a 'baby's first tablet' for me before I went into using it for work, and a larger trust one I got when that stopped working that crapped out after all of about two months. Cheaper but not worth it in my opinion.
I've worked with both an intuos and a cintiq and they were both *amazing*. I have every plan to upgrade again in the future. But it's best to start off cheap to get your feet wet, as it were, and the bamboo's a great option for that.
EDIT: I knew I'd forgotten something! Good luck with your webcomic! And keep at it. A lot of those things flop before they pick up speed but it's a great thing to be working on if you like comics, and something that makes you get drawings done on a schedule will improve your art so quickly. I hope it goes well for you!
I'm a freelance concept artist and the medium bamboo works just fine for my work. There is initial difficulty in mentally connecting 'this part of tablet' to 'this part of screen' but after a few practice sketches it gets a lot more natural. The one thing I'd say to look out for with a bamboo is the nibs - they run down fairly quickly if you use them a lot. I go through one a month usually (with about 2-4 hours of use per day), though I've ended up wearing down two or three during extended 'oh dear I need to be working' time (with about 10-15 hours of constant use per day). You'll get 2 or 3 in the box with the tablet but after that you have to order them from the website and it can end up being a surprise expense.
If you're on a really, really tight budget, there's a model of wacom tablet called the volito 2. The work area is tiny tiny tiny but it's cheap (mine was £23 from tesco on offer a few years ago). I'm not 100% sure if it's still easily available but if it is it's cheap and usable. I did my freelance work with it for two years before I caved and upgraded to my current wacom.
My experience with non-wacom tablets hasn't been all that great. Trust tablets are cheap but I found the pens heavy and the tablets themselves unreliable. I had a TB-2100 (I think) that lasted me about 9 months, which was okay because it was very much a 'baby's first tablet' for me before I went into using it for work, and a larger trust one I got when that stopped working that crapped out after all of about two months. Cheaper but not worth it in my opinion.
I've worked with both an intuos and a cintiq and they were both *amazing*. I have every plan to upgrade again in the future. But it's best to start off cheap to get your feet wet, as it were, and the bamboo's a great option for that.
EDIT: I knew I'd forgotten something! Good luck with your webcomic! And keep at it. A lot of those things flop before they pick up speed but it's a great thing to be working on if you like comics, and something that makes you get drawings done on a schedule will improve your art so quickly. I hope it goes well for you!