General Discussion

My first drawing tablet was a Wacom Bamboo Pen that was a gift from my art teacher at the time. Prior to that I was drawing with a mouse. Nowadays I can't even draw with a mouse anymore because I'm so used to drawing with a tablet lol

At the moment my tablet is a Wacom Intuos Pro Medium that I bought in 2020 after the one I bought in 2015 gave up the ghost. My primary art programs are Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop, but in the past I have used programs such as Fire Alpaca, MediBang, GIMP, and Krita to varying degrees of success.

I have been on the fence about upgrading to a screen tablet. I recently upgraded my PC to one that can actually run Photoshop without issue (I used CSP on my last laptop because Photoshop could barely run on it), and have been looking into tablet upgrades as well.

It's between a screen tablet and a full-on iPad Pro + Apple Pencil + ProCreate bundle, which I know a lot of artists use but is not something I am fully on board with doing.

I had a Wacom Intuos a few years back that is now catching dust because I could never get used to it, now I have an iPad Pro since 2018? 2019?, I don't remember, the guy is still alive though and my wacom intuos works fine even though I do most of the other things using a mouse instead of it XD because my computer usually freezes for a short second, but it's been happening so often when I have it connected that I just simply put it to rest oof.

I understand the artblock sghjdghd I've been in one for a solid 2 or 3 years, drawing very irregularly compared to how I used to enjoy it years prior and drawing since I was 7, and I'm getting back to it just NOW after some lengthy trauma about sahring my stuff n' junk because I had my drawings stolen in the past lmao. I tried Procreate but I didn't like it, getting the exact same brush I like to use for everything was hard because I didn't quite understand the options, began to use Medibang Paint down the road because it's free and it had the brush I liked to use (which is "watercolor", just because everything blends and I've been behind my lineart practice hshjsghhjs, I tend to render everything from the get go), then moved to Medibang Pro, which was 9 dollars for a single purchase and I've been using it since because "watercolor" brush my beloved.

my first forays into digital art were using the path tool in GIMP with a mouse.. it served me well but i switched to medibang after buying myself a wacom intuos, and now i'm using clip studio. i never really had any issue adjusting to not looking at where my hand is drawing, and honestly screen tablets have never seemed too interesting to me. i have a touch screen laptop that i'd use for note taking in college, but doodling (and even writing) on it always felt a little weird to me haha

in terms of how my drawing is going now, i'd say it's all right. my health has been very unpredictable since last march, with lots of very low lows during which i couldn't even think about drawing... but beyond that i've been having a lot of fun designing anthro versions of my dragons! i'm hoping my health will get well enough before too long that i can really get back in the swing of things finally ^_^

i get the art block thing - i didnt draw for 8+ years other than traditional doodles. right now i have a dinky little laptop that i use for both school and art, XP pen deco 01 v2 (my fiance gave me a better tablet but unfortunately my laptop doesn't have the capacity to handle it), and clip studio. i've seen most people make the switch to an ipad, and i've been greatly considering that as well - but i think i just need to worry about a better laptop first lol.

I think I've had this Intuos for 13 years now. The small size doesn't bother me at all and I would actually find a larger tablet way more annoying, storage wise, etc

I actually don't like drawing on a screen either so I guess I'm just kind of a digital art boomer LOL

I also still use SAI. I own Clip Studio and SAI to me is still just superior, with its only flaw being that it can't really utilize special shape brushes and that it has no blur/sharpen/etc and is lacking some filters. I use both programs for that reason.

I should buy SAI2 sometime.

I've been using my wacom intuos draw for like, 6 years now??? I don't think I'm buying a new tablet anytime soon because I don't want to go through the process of getting used to another tablet lol, I'll just use this one until it's completely broken.
The very first art program I tried was Medibang Paint Pro! And I've been using it until the beginning of last year when I switched to SAI2. I love Medibang for the wie range of brushes it included when you made an account and downloaded everything from the cloud, but after they started including premium options and for some reason started getting laggier and laggier I just switched up, SAI2 is much better optimized, it may not have shaped brushes but I mostly care about the textures anyways.

I use the same ipad that I use for everything else, lol. I used to draw on ibispaint but it started feeling too clunky after a while, so I switched to procreate, and oh man I’m never going back. I have a brush downloaded that does EVERYTHING, from sketching to lineart to coloring and shading. It’s made digital art a lot more fun for me ngl.

Years ago when I was still in middle school, I used kleki, because I was bored in class and it worked on school chromebooks, lol. It was simple but worked well.

Anyways, procreate my beloved and sai ink brush my beloved

I really need to get around to downloading more brushes for Procreate, I've just been getting by with the default brushes so far!

PS I've managed to draw every day since getting my iPad~ It's only been like a week though

I've been using the Huion H610 for a few years now. When I first got it I just wanted a budget drawing tablet because I wasn't sure if I was going to like jumping to digital art haha. It's actually quite nice. I feel like now after having it for a few years that it's pretty great to use. It works with Firealpaca so I'm quite happy!

I regularly go through art block sometimes. Before I started with digital art I used to be a painter. I loved oil paints the most but a little bit after 2020 I couldn't really bring myself to start painting again. Part of the reason was that I liked having a space to myself to paint, but since the pandemic for reasons out of my control that wasn't quite possible anymore. Another reason is that I felt a little less creative, and I feared wasting my paints. Which seems silly, but I don't know why I keep waiting for the right moment to return.
For now I plug in my tablet when I feel like working on something. Which helps me feel better. I don't try to think about filling up sketchbooks, or doing inktober anymore. I take it as I go

I still have my ol' reliable intuos I got for my birthday several years back, and it + krita got me through a bunch of years art-wise.

But they havent felt the same to use after being spoiled by using a cintiq and photoshop for my course work for 4ish years. Ended up swapping to drawing stuff again with sketchbook on my phone & a cheap stylus from temu, after playing around with a few sketches and having them turn out halfway decent. Honestly getting better results then when I try to use my laptop, and being able to rotate and zoom in/out anywhere on the canvas without having to swap to my mouse is just so much easier so I've just been sticking with it for the main drawings now, and then exporting them to krita for any extra editing they may need.