#art tablets

original tweet is now deleted, but wacom used a generated image of a dragon for their 2024 lunar new year promo on twitter.

if you're shopping for art tablets, huion, artisul, and XPPen tablets do just as good a job as their wacom equivalents for less, sometimes even half the price.

when you buy a wacom you're paying almost exclusively for the Brand Name, not any actual quality.

This post exists to help anyone looking into buying a new drawing tablet! It is sorted into three sections, beginner's tablets, intermediate tablets, and tablets for professionals. These tablets are ranked with a colour scale on 6 aspects, their price, size, sensitivity, number of keys, colour calibration, and resolution. All tablets are linked.

Hellooo Anon! Thank you for the kinds words--IDK when you sent this but I figured I’d answer it!

Curreeently I use a Cintiq 16! (By Wacom of course)

I actually won it for taking one of the second place spots in CELSYS CLIPSTUDIO International Comic Contest for my short story HeARTfelt! (Forgive me, I just wanted to brag a little...)

https://www.csp-web.net/promotion/comiccontest/result/en/index.html

I really like drawing with the screen because it’s just a tiny tiny bit faster for me! 

Bbbuuuutttt for years before that I used a dinky little Bamboo Wacom Tablet! 

It’s hard to find the original one I used nowadays, but know it was small--had around 5 inches of working area--and lasted for a really long time! I had replace the pen and the wires but the tablet worked for my whole high school and college career--I only had to replaced it when all my stuff got stolen!

I actually only really started using a Cintiq consistently around this time last year--I used to use my college’s cintiqs but Obviously since graduating I can’t do that anymore lol. 

 I assume you’re probably looking to buy a tablet anon-chan and I gotta say it’s worth it to splurge/save up on a wacom brand tablet, they really do last for forever--I’ve tried cheaper brands and they usually pooped out on me pretty quick. As long as you take care of them (And don’t smoosh the wires and tear them and throw your pen on the ground..Like I do...) they’ll work fine--plus they’re very modular, so if something break (Like, yanno, the wires or pen...) you can usually just replace that component rather than buying a whole new thing! 

They can get as cheap as $100 for a small one so--yeah! My two cents--I’m sure there are other brands folks would swear by but just from my experience there’s a reason why Wacom is the leading brand in this stuff!

No worries if you don’t have a recommendation, I may have just misremembered. Either way, I hope you have a lovely evening and thanks for sharing your art! ^_^

Oh I can talk tablets for Hours don't even worry

I have a tablet that can download programs and that is this one right here!

The Huion Kamvas Studio 22

It's been retired from Huion's store for a couple years now, succeeded by Huion's new Kamvas Studio 24; the new, sleeker edition of my 22.

If you're looking for a tablet that can download actual software and not just act as a second display for your computer, you'll be looking specifically for a "Pen Computer". Huion currently offers two - the Kamvas Studio 24 and the travel-sized Kamvas Studio 16. Both come with Windows 11 preinstalled.

Huion also released the Kamvas Slate 10, and while it is categorized as a pen computer, it's designed to compete with tablets like the iPad or PicassoTab and operates on Android 12.

While the idea of an independent computer you can draw on the screen of isn't at all novel, they're still arguably "new" for the companies whose target demographic is artists. At the time of this post, Huion appears to be Wacom's main and only competitor in that field. Artisul, Gaomon and XPpen do not manufacture them. Options for standalone drawing tablets that can download software [not just apps like a phone] are largely limited to:

Huion Kamvas Studio 16

Huion Kamvas Studio 22

Huion Kamvas Studio 24

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 13

Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16

I know I hype up Huion a lot and that's primarily because I have actual firsthand experience with their products, but I cannot stress enough that the Huion can do the job just as well as the Wacom. If you're hellbent on the Wacom, get it when it's on BIG sale, or cheaper secondhand / refurbished. Wacom's MobileStudio line can start at around ~$2600 USD and up, whereas the Huion Kamvas Studio, while still costly, can start from ~$1700 USD. I've seen Kamvas Studio 22s floating around for around $1000 USD which is already $500 off what I originally paid for mine.

Pen computers are one hell of an investment but they're extremely convenient to have. I'm currently saving up for a Kamvas Studio 16 as my travel laptop barely has the power to support Clip Studio and I want to be able to take my work on the go without fumbling around with cords.

But when I plugged everything back in... it stopped working. The screen would come on for a few seconds, say "No signal" and then cut off afterward. OH NO!

So, I went through the process as any good computer user must do. I restarted my computer, deleted the old Pen-Tablet drives, and reinstalled them, I unplugged everything at every connection and replugged them in... still no cigar. SMH!

Finally, I do it. I open Reddit dot com (GASP!). Scouring nasty comments and fellow angry tablet users, I find who I am searching for: someone with the same exact problem from four years ago (HALLELUJAH!). Opening the comments, there it is, an angel disguised as a disgruntled PC user with the vocabulary of a saint saying; "Plug the HDMI into the graphics card, not the motherboard. Dumbass."

Following the instructions of someone clearly smarter than past-me from an hour ago, I do as I am told... AND BAM! My tablet is now working without problems.