I spent hours every day as a kid drawing and painting but stopped through most of my adult life. I want to get back into it and am finally thinking of taking the plunge into digital. It will never feel the same as pen and paper but it's gonna be easier in the long run. Does anyone have any experience with it at all?

I've been doing some research and definitely want a drawing tablet rather than a graphics tablet; one that I can use with or without the pc and just draw and see on the screen, not looking over at a monitor. It can get a bit confusing on sites to see which ones are pc-independant or not as they often merge all the reviews for different models. So does anyone have ideas on a good beginners one? I'm looking at probably the £400 budget I guess and will keep an eye on Amazon Prime day! Wacom One seems to be one that keeps cropping up as a decent one.

Sorry, completely incompetent on this matter.

Same.

No worries, thanks anyway!

Never gotten one with a built in screen, sorry. I do own both a Bamboo and a Wacom Intuous medium tablet, both many years old.

Wacom Intuous


Bamboo


They're both great... I got the Intuous first, then picked up the bamboo for portability. I don't use either regularly, but (again), they're pretty awesome. The learning curve is minimal from my experience... at first it's weird to look at a screen and draw on a tablet offscreen, but you get used to it.

This is not what you were asking for, so I apologize, but it's the closest I could get. I wouldn't mind getting a real tablet with a screen to draw on, but I haven't done so as yet. I honestly don't use these very often, so it's hard to justify the investment.

Yeah I've heard it's not so tough to learn to look at the screen (I suppose 'real' artists kind of do this as they're told to look at the subject most of the time and rarely at the canvas) but I'd like one I can see on the tablet simply so I can draw in bed, on the balcony or take it to France with me. Plus we try to avoid moving wires around or adding them in as much as possible or the degus will figure out a way to get to them and eat them. They're both by the same company aren't they? I seem to remember seeing Bamboo is Wacom's more portable range. I've mainly seen Wacom or something beginning with a H cropping up as the two main ones so could be inclined to go Wacom if you've liked both of yours. Thanks Satis

Yea, both of the ones I posted are by Wacom... one's just professional vs. consumer. These are really old though... I have no idea what the current lineup looks like. I do understand the desire to not have dangling wires, or needing to have a PC. I'm afraid I have no personal experience to draw on for that.

I couldn't find an actual standalone one to save my life so I've gone for this one. Should've been £349, was £262 in the Prime sale so it's not too expensive if I don't end up getting on with it. Should arrive Wednesday

Oh, pretty cool. Please let me know what you think of it.

Will do! When I get it working, I got my DisplayPort > HDMI adapter through today but haven't had a chance to mess with it so I'll probably try it out tomorrow. Fingers crossed for me please.

It works! Well as a second screen at least. Now I need to download some drawing software to try it out properly. Thanks for the help Peltz!

I've been messing about for a couple of hours tonight. It's rubbish as I haven't done any serious drawing in years! The majority of my art is usually sketches in pencil though I've done watercolours, charcoal and pastels (oil and chalk) in the past. Plus I've never ever done graphics on a computer so when it comes to the software I'm a total novice. So there's some just general messing around with preset tools and some attempts at sketching. I need to go through some tutorials to figure everything out and just get back into the habit. I used to draw every day as a kid but in the last 10 years I've probably drawn 3 things. Quite pleased of the very quick sketch I did of my degu whilst he was sitting on his shelf though.

That's still 1 million times better than anything i'd draw. Nice.

Thanks J!

Very cool. Keep it up Pevil.