#Drawing Tablets Over Mouse

[techconnectpro]

Explore the transformative role of drawing tablets in digital art & design. Discover why artists are trading mice for tablets. Dive into the evolution.

[rookeryyy]

i mightve made the fatal mistake of thinking and talking too hard about yttd again. Gin Ibushi Webfishing

[stardestroyer81]

Inspired by this post by @artpro86, I wanted an excuse to draw my latest blorbo, Cindy Bear, in a similar fashion... it didn't take me too long to be struck with an iconic reaction image to redraw with her instead.

[gleamer]

how do you get such amazing skin texture in blender? love your blog so much btw

Thank you! 🩵

The short answer is what I’ve been telling everyone who asks which is Surface Blur in Photoshop. The long answer involves this Golyhawhaw tutorial lmao.

+ A random video of me editing Donny's skin in real time:

[1nindroid]

Some leaked minifigures from the worst Lego™ Ninjago set ever- with all new acessories like the new Lego™ cigarette, shitty warm beer and bootleg Ween merch!

[hero-of-doom]

Fun fact, all my MS Paint art is done with a mouse at work. Because I get so god damn bored sitting there. I do more art on my work computer than my PC nowadays....

[neodoesart]

[AF2024 WIP]

coffee power

[maraschinotopped]

i love having very specific problems that are fine in the long run but are annoying hindrances i have to deal with daily. soooo fun. great (gritting teeth) <- tablet driver literally refusing to show me the options menu so i can customize the tablet buttons but working in every other regard

[bamsara]

Hey I’m lookin into getting a drawing tablet and you’re one of my favorite artists (who’s also quite frugal, which I respect greatly), so do you have any recommendations for where/what kinds to look into?

OKAY SO I use a Wacom Intuos tablet I got in 2015. It's the older version of it, so the product on their website is the newer redesigned version, and I bought mine for about $50(?) At the time and aside from me having to replace the cord several times (it just connects using a standard Samsung cord) it still works mostly fine. Here's a link to it (it won't look like mine since mines almost a decade old)

Good for a starter tablet and it has lasted me about a little over 9 years at this point. Here's what mine looks like (mouse for size comparison:

Damaged but still kicks, so I can atest for its durability at least (at least this model) but I've never owned another tablet to give more recommendations last this one for a safe starter. I also know that in the last year (?) Wacom got accused of using AI art to promote something so take that as it will be, I haven't checked up on that situation yet

As for more up-to-date and screen tablets, my friend @vurelly just got a new one and did a lot of research on them so they could also have some better advice!

[akanemnon]

How did you come up with your artstyle? You suddenly started drawing like that, or you have drawn like this your entire life?

Oh no. My art style has evolved a lot over the years. I used to draw in a more anime-esque style in the beginning. Not to mention that I mostly did watercolor artworks before I switched to digital. That was mostly in my Kirby days way back then. I've been doing this for a while (and my back certainly feels like it)

Here's some old art I did way back when. (Not showing the old Kirby stuff. That's where the break between 2013 and 2018 appears)

Ca. 2013

Ca. 2018

Ca 2019 (the digital art I used to do was with Gimp and a mouse, believe it or not.)

Ca. 2020 (From here on out I switched to Clip Studio Paint and a drawing tablet for digital art)

Ca. 2022

Around 2022 my style became more shapely. I still like drawing in the more anime-esque style. Especially when renderring. That's my favorite part

[boaillustration]

The Artisul team was kind enough to send me their Artisul D16 display tablet to review! Timelapse and review can be found under the read more.

I have been using the same model of display tablet for over 10 years now (a Wacom Cintiq 22HD) and feel like I might be set in my ways, so getting the chance to try a different brand of display tablet was also a new experience for me!

The Unboxing 

The tablet arrived in high-quality packaging with enough protection that none of the components get scratched or banged up in the shipping process. I was pleasantly surprised that additionally to the tablet, pen, stand, cables and nibs it also included a smudge guard glove and a pen case. 

The stand is very light-weight and I was at first worried that it would not be able to hold up the tablet safely, but it held up really well. I appreciated that it offered steeper levels of inclination for the tablet, since I have seen plenty other display tablets who don’t offer that level of ergonomics for artists. My only gripe is that you can’t anchor the tablet to the stand. It will rest on the stand and can be easily taken on or off, but that also means that you can bump into it and dislodge it from the stand if you aren’t careful. It would require significant force, but as a cat owner, I know that a scenario like that is more likely than I’d like.

Another thing I noticed is how light the tablet is in comparison to my Cintiq. Granted, my Cintiq is larger (22 inches vs the 15.8 inches of the Artisul D16), but the Artisul D16 comes in at about 1.5kg of weight. While I don’t consider display tablets that require a PC and an outlet to work really portable, it would be a lot easier to move with the Artisul D16 from one space to another. In comparison, my Cintiq weighs in at a proud 8.5kg, making it a chore to move around. I have it hooked up to a monitor stand to be able to move it more easily across my desk.

The Setup

The setup of the tablet was quick as well, with only minor hiccups. The drivers installed quickly and basic setup was done in a matter of minutes. That doesn’t mean it came without issues: the cursor vanished as soon as I hovered over the driver window, making it a guessing game where I would be clicking and the pen calibration refused to work on the tablet screen and instead always defaulted to my regular screen. I ended up using the out of the box pen calibration for my test drawing which worked well enough.

The tablet comes with customizable hot-keys that you can reassign in the driver software. I did not end up using the hot-keys, since I use a Razer Tartarus for all my shortcuts, but I did play around with them to get a feel for them. The zoom wheel had a very satisfying haptic feel to it which I really enjoyed, and as far as I could tell, you can map a lot of shortcuts to the buttons, including with modifier keys like ctrl, shift, alt and the win key. I noticed that there was no option to map numpad keys to these buttons, but I was informed by my stream viewers that very few people have a full size keyboard with a numpad anymore. 

The pen comes with two buttons as well. Unlike the hot-keys on the side of the tablet, these are barely customizable. I was only able to assign mouse clicks to them (right, left, scroll wheel click, etc) and no other hotkeys. I have the alt key mapped to my pen button on my Cintiq, enabling me to color pick with a single click of the pen. The other button is mapped to the tablet menu for easy display switches. Not having this level of customization was a bit of a bummer, but I just ended up mapping the alt key to a new button on my Razer Tartarus and moved on.

The pen had a very similar size to my Wacom pen, but was significantly lighter. It also rattled slightly when shook, but after inspection this was just the buttons clicking against the outer case and no internal issues. The pen is made from one material, a smooth plastic finish. I would have liked for there to be a rubber-like material at the grip like on the Wacom pen for better handling, but it still worked fine without it.

Despite not being able to calibrate the pen for the display tablet, the cursor offset was minimal. It took me a while at the beginning to get used to the slight difference to my current tablet, but it was easy to get used to it and I was able to smoothly ink and color with the tablet. The screen surface was very smooth, reminding me more of an iPad surface. The included smudge guard glove helped mitigate any slipping or sliding this might have caused, enabling me to draw smoothly. Like with the cursor offset, it took me a while to get used to the different pressure sensitivity of the tablet, but I adapted quickly.

So what do I think of it?

Overall, drawing felt different on this tablet, but I can easily see myself getting used to the quirks of the tablet with time. Most of the issues I had were QoL things I am used to from my existing tablet. 

But I think that’s where the most important argument for the tablet comes in: the price.

I love my Cintiq. I can do professional grade work on it and I rebought the same model after my old one got screen issues, I liked it that much. But it also costs more than a 1000 € still, even after being on the market for over 10 years (I bought it for about 1.500 € refurbished in 2014, for reference). The Artisul D16 on the other hand runs you a bit more than 200€. That is a significant price difference! I often get asked by aspiring artists what tools I use and while I am always honest with them, I also preface it by saying that they should not invest in a Cintiq if they are just starting out. They are high quality professional tools and have a price point that reflects that. You do not need these expensive tools to create art. You can get great results on a lot cheaper alternatives! I do this for a living so I can justify paying extra for the QoL upgrades the Cintiq offers me, but I have no illusion that they are an accessible tool for most people. 

I can recommend the Artisul D16 as a beginner screen tablet for people who are just getting into art or want to try a display tablet for once. I wouldn’t give up my Cintiq for it, but I can appreciate the value it offers for the competitive price point. If you want to get an Artisul D16 for yourself, you can click this link to check out their shop!

AMAZON.US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TQLGC81

AMAZON.JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07T6ZT84V

AMAZON.MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07T6ZT84V

Once again thank you to the Artisul team for giving me the opportunity to review their display tablet!

[corantus]

i was wondering how do you draw so good with your mouse? i don't have a tablet so it would be helpful to know

thank yoou 🥲

theres probably a lot of ways to go about it. but personally i do it by drawing a bunch of shorter lines with quick strokes (like multiple attempts at the same line) then i go back in and erase

when ive rendered things and im working with only one layer it also helps me to think of it the same way as i would painting on a canvas irl. like u have to manually build up layers/colors. or doing blocks of color then going back and drawing lines over them

at least for me theres a certain amount of wobbly lines and wonkiness inherent to drawing like this so i dont worry abt my lines being extremely clean. anyway!

[meanbossart]

After months I've finally finished another drawing of Drow!!! This was a journey. I was able to get my first drawing pad yesterday so a majority of this was drawn with my mouse which was a struggle LMAO.

On the far left is my Durge Knell. A while back I asked how Drow would react to a reformed traditionalist female drow and this is the she in question. I honestly think their dynamic has potential because of the whole "their-lover-is-my-best-friend" situation going on.

This whole project led me on a self-guided tour through your page for Drow references and inspo for Shadowheart and Astarion, and let me just say, it is incredible to see how much your artstyle has changed and improved over time. It's really inspirational for someone like myself who has just recently begun to try to pick up digital art as a more involved hobby. Anyway, I'll stop rambling before I type a novella. I hope you enjoy the drawing!

YOU DID MOST OF THIS WITH A MOUSE?????????????? DUDE 😭😭😭😭😭

I'm so touched that you put yourself through that just to make some art happen!!!! I always admire it when people work with their limitations, It shows your drive! I'm so glad you were able to get your hands on a tablet and I hope you can have a much easier and more fun time developing your craft from here on.

And I love the idea of DU drow having to behave for the sake of his BFF LOL I can assure you that after a stern talking-to from Shadowheart he would keep the crass jokes to a minimum - well, save for the expected healthy dose of drow-on-"drow" antagonism, but that's par for the course.

Either way, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE LOVELY ART! The emotional journeys that everybody's faces are going through is killing me, Godspeed Shadowheart. And good luck to you on your art journey 🫡

[tumatawa]

This is the main CSP brush I usually use for my lineart. I also use it for sketching. I didnt realize how much I altered this one over the years so here are my personal settings. Mouse mode settings can be found in File > Preferences > Tablet for jagged and uneven lines

If I'm not using that I'm using this

I also have been trying out this lopsided brush on low texture density for Flash-esque lineart. I never used Flash but I like pretending to. It seems I only use it when drawing twintailed characters so far

For colors I just use the default CSP brushes available, "Opaque Watercolor" is altered to have a square tip but it's sometimes reverted to circle. I use these from time to time as well for traditional looking stuff because Ive never drawn anything in real life but I like pretending to.

I hope this answers your question, Have lots of fun using them. You will probably use them better than me ^^

[fanatasiad]

Do I have your undivided attention?

Might as well post some of my old stuff here! This one is from July 2024. Before i had my drawing tablet id draw stuff on paper then draw over it on gimp using mouse, it was particularly slow but hey! it worked!

Here is the initial "Sketch" on paper...

[crosshairs-dumb-pimp-gf]

Texting it out down here cause in video would go by to fast. Also the video for the sketch layer didn't save so it picks up at me starting on Cross's face. Not too much missed, I only rough out some shapes and copy/paste them where I want them from frame to frame.

It takes me about 2 hours or so to make one of these. I'm using a mouse rather than a tablet so you'll notice my style is more like carving with lines rather than drawing.

I fill my background and put down a very rough sketch. I keep it rough mostly do to impatience. The line work does turn out better if I do a more detailed sketch but that doesn't matter. None of this matters.

Things I always do that I know to correct in my line work as I go: "That head too big! Always too big! Eyes too! Shrink erything."

I do the line art in a free program called ProMotion. It's for animation but I don't care, I'm looking for clean sharp lines and tools that let me copy/paste and instantly make brushes of pieces that I highlight. Its a pixel based program and I would normally use it to make sprites for my RPG maker games.

IMPORTANT STEP: ZOOM IN AND OUT OVER AND OVER AND OVER TILL YOU DONT CARE IF IT LOOKS RIGHT ANYMORE.

Then we take that line art and shove it into Photopea for coloring. This is another free program that's a clone of Adobe because I like photoshop tools but hate Adobe as a company with a fiery passion.

Yes I just kind of choose whatever color. I could make a reference sheet with saved colors but TRUST ME. I wont use it. I almost never use references, i forget, okay. Mostly drawing from memory.

Each color gets a layer essentially and then I "paint" them with the burn tool. (Midtones 20%) Cross's armor gets highlights on the ridges with the dodge tool. (Also Midtones 20%)

Add Blush to the skin! Thin points like face, shoulders, finger tips. Blur Blur Blur till it looks right.

Also, remember how I said I was looking for clean clean lines with no blur? That's cause I just clean up the "paint" by selecting with the magic wand and deleting it.

I make my backgrounds out of stock textures mostly. Though this usually takes a little bit more collage work this strip is simple so I just used the gritty/tech wall texture. Blur that bitch. (Gaussian Blur under the filter tab, whatever looks right but the default 7 pixels is usually good for the BG)

To add motion I copy the bits I want to seem like they're moving and use the "Motion Blur" filter, then I put that copied color over the background line art.

Add shadows! Under the coloring layers, that handy gaussian blur again.

Add Lighting! I usually have the overlayer set to "Soft Light" and then I use the gradient tool to filter everything to look cohesive. (You might notice I keep their skin tone pretty dark but it might look different when I change the lighting.)

Warp the action words... just...whatever feels appropriate at the time and set that layer to "Color Burn"

I just use the Oval select tool with the feather set between 3-5 pixels to make word bubbles. Paint it in voila. Add Text. All done!

Cross x Tahny: +A Summary+

My philosophy : Style matters more than skill and you should cheat and cut corners as much as possible. Peace and Love.

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Tags:

@feral-ferrule @eobe @ghostymarni