I've been wanting to pick up on digital art for a long time now, one of which is using a drawing tablet. Since my car has finally been paid off (tomorrow morning) I can afford to be flexible with my money and buy something I've wanted for months on end.

 

My main questions are:

 

What size/model Drawing tablet should I consider?

What is a good thing to start learning to gradually become more skilled with it VIA photoshop

How much am I looking at spending for a decent beginners tablet?

 

reason being is also, I CANNOT draw using a mouse because I'm left-handed and its insanely difficult with either hand.

What size/model Drawing tablet should I consider?

Size - it's up to you. It's usually a good idea to base it off the following:

 

• How large you draw normally on paper. Do you usually make big sketches that fill up an entire page, or small doodles that fill up a small portion of the page?
  
• It's also often a good idea to at least generally try to link it to your monitor size. If you're using a 15" laptop it might feel a little weird using a large tablet.

As for model.. well definitely get a Wacom tablet. Absolutely no question there. They have the best tablets. Period. If a digital artist has a tablet, they have a wacom.

 

What is a good thing to start learning to gradually become more skilled with it VIA photoshop

I wouldn't recommend learning a specific thing to get more skilled with using a tablet. I would recommend just sketching mindlessly. Have fun with it. Don't go into it with a specific goal. Just sketch, play around, do some doodling, etc.

 

How much am I looking at spending for a decent beginners tablet?

Wacom's cheapest option is the Bamboo Connect at $79. I personally use the Wacom Intuos 4 (link to Intuos 5, which is the new version) which is more geared towards professionals and therefore priced at $300 or so.

 

reason being is also, I CANNOT draw using a mouse because I'm left-handed and its insanely difficult with either hand.

Hey now, I'm left handed and made digital paintings with a mouse for YEARS! :P

I've been using a Wacom Bamboo Fun for several years now. It served wonders for me and is still in great condition.

My advice: Listen to Tripsis, seriously. I asked this same question a while ago and she was more than helpful. I am currently using an Intuos(only because I won a scratcher for $5k USD lol), but the Bamboo is super awesome for it's price. I used a Bamboo for a long time and loved it.

I can sell you one for $25, if you also want to pay for shipping to Aus, from NZ. A Wacom Bamboo.

Might consider that Felix. my moitor's a 23" and I tend to do mostly smaller sketching.

 

Edit: what size/model is it btw?

A wacom bamboo, 2 years old, minor use with an 10" tablet iirc. It correlated well to my 22" monitor

Sounds spiffy. Whats the cost for express airshipment?

Should be around $15-20. Likely cheaper.

I recently bought an Intuos 5, my first ever tablet. I must say that I am massively happy that I took the advice of nearly everyone I asked concerning them - buy the one you're going to keep, don't go cheap as a "taster." This is because the difference between many of the cheaper options and the real thing like the Intuos 3/4/5 is incredibly large, you're either going to instantly know that you want a better tablet and end up buying a better one straight away, or find the cheap one so damn awful that it puts you off tablets for good, meaning you miss out on something you'd potentially love if you got a decent one. (after using my Intuos 5 for a few days, I had a go for the first time on a friend's tablet - I forget what the name was, something beginning with R - and well, I just couldn't stand drawing on it for more than 10 minutes, it felt slow and uncooperative.)

 

Size wise, certainly match your monitor. The larger the better, really, but just look at your desk - how much room do you have? I'm used to painting and drawing on very large, vertical canvases so I was thinking of opting for an XL tablet - thank God I didn't. The L I got is just the right size (big enough to be a nuisance in terms of fitting my keyboard on at the same time, but small enough to be manageable and slide nicely in my keyboard-drawer-thingy to keep it safe when not in use) With the Intuos 5, you get a whole range of touch-based wizardry, which makes navigation of pretty much any software a breeze - I'm yet to find anything that doesn't allow high levels of customization apart from the Auto desk program I got with my Intuos 5 as a free software addition - quite annoyingly, there seems to be no way to make the tablet control brush size with the program :(

 

One thing I must note here, however, is how terrible Wacom are. They really are a waste of time; prices outside of the US are roughly double those inside for no calculable reason - I even considered getting an American friend to buy my tablet and ship it privately. Don't even dream of buying any additional things like a carry-case or bag, they're horrendously bad quality and the customer service is to the degree of IDon'tWantToLiveOnThisPlanetAnymore that you're not going to be seeing a refund this side of NASA's next launch.

Sadly, they're also pretty much the only place where you're going to find a good quality tablet :wall:

 

If you're looking for a good tablet that you don't need to upgrade and isn't a stupid price like the Intuos 5 was, I'd go for an Intuos 3. This tablet is what nearly every concept design artist for games companies such as Bethesda starts out with, before expanding their horizons and buying a cintiq - don't look at cintiqs, they make you feel insecure about how terribly poor you are. Intuos 3s also don't have the "paper like texture" that Intuos 4 and 5 have, which I find is just another way of saying "The tablet's gonna wear down your nibs before you've even started planning your first sketch, don't worry though, we'll sell you more nibs for only half your bank account!"

 

Summary: Go for an Intuos 3, 4 or 5 if you're seriously going to be using one of these a lot, it'll be worth it.

 

As for learning how to draw graphically, which is something very new to me, I find watching YT videos of those that have clearly mastered the art (no pun intended) such as "cgsbgs" and "Mike Nash" very helpful.