July 22, 2021

Do you use a graphic drawing tablet for pixel art?

Thanks to remakes and remasters of retro video games, pixel art has made a return to the spotlight. Although new video game graphics have reached a hyper-realistic level, it still can't beat the charm of pixel art. Which is why game developers and artists alike turn to pixel art tools to create throwback video games and artwork.

Pixel art is a discipline like any other, which means it takes time and practice to learn how to do it well. It helps to have a background in other visual arts, but it's not required, though it will then take longer to learn properly.

If you want to do pixel art professionally (as a freelance artist for example) you'll most likely need to learn about animation as well since most jobs will have you animate characters for a game.

It takes up the same concept as any other forms of art. For the most part, failures will be made and few successes to it, especially when someone is starting out. The great thing about pixel art is that you can use whatever style and size you desire!

Finally, even if you're very skilled, pixel art pieces can take a lot of time. Good pixel art is hard to make. It takes years of practice to get good. This is partly because pixel art is a very minutious discipline, but also because you'll end up redoing a lot of the same sprites over and over as revisions are needed due to the game changing.

It IS however very rewarding. Seeing your animated characters come to life in an interactive environment is very satisfying after you spend so much time and effort creating them!

Do you want to try your hand at creating pixel perfect artwork? Then these pixel art tools will help you get started.

Best pixel art software

art software that allows you to draw on a computer will be your best ally for making pixel art.

While there's great dedicated tools for making pixel art, you can use any drawing program to follow along.

Here's a list of software commonly used for pixel art:
Aseprite: Great professional editor with many time-saving features (paid).
GraphicsGale: A classic, used in many games. It's a little complex, but full of great features (free).
Piskel: Free online pixel art editor (free).
Photoshop: Powerful image editor not intended to make pixel art but you can set it up to use it (paid).
GIMP: comes with all the tools you'll need to make professional pixel art. best known as the "free alternative” to Photoshop (free).

my favorite software is Aseprite, but you should use whatever your're most comfortable with.

Aseprite is incredibly powerful, packed with features and yet simple to use. The main advantage of Aseprite is that you can export gifs (you can't in the free version of GG).

You can also get the free trial for Aseprite, but keep in mind it won't save your files, which I guess it's OK if you are just practicing.

You can use Photoshop or GIMP for pixel art, but in my opinion these are best relegated to very particular kinds of operations. Using a dedicated pixelart app for most of your pixelart stuff saves time setting up and avoids showing options that are ultimately pretty irrelevant to pixel art -- of which there are many. Some features -- like tile autocompletion -- are only found in pixel-art specific apps.

Best device for pixel art

Thanks to the computer, it is now possible to draw without limits and without having to spend hundreds of dollars in drawing materials consumed at a high pace.

There are many different ways to draw on a computer. While starting out with no specific hardware other than your laptop, investing incomputer drawing pad tabletseems to be a must for those who want to improve their design process and draw more accurately and quickly than with a mouse.

A pen tablet is more ergonomic and better for your hand and wrist over long periods (trust me on this one). they have helped me in the past when I have RSI niggles.

It is much quicker navigating the screen when mapped "correctly” ( I think it is called corner to corner mapping) your hand starts to remover where certain button are on the screen and you can just move to them almost instantly. Selecting multiple things is also made much easier.

Big advantages to the tablet are, pressure sensitivity, it feels as if it were a pencil on paper, which is so lovely to work with.

A graphics tablet is worth it for pixel art, but I recommend also experimenting with non-pixel-art (eg CG or ink, with MyPaint, Krita, or Photoshop) -- tablets are very versatile, building up your skills in other areas will help your pixelart skills, and experimenting is VASTLY quicker with a tablet than basically anything else I've ever tried.

Shopping for a drawing tablet can be a bit overwhelming. The pricing is confusing, and important features like pressure sensitivity and latency aren't always easy to understand.

It can be intimidating to see all these expensive big screen displays by Wacom, or products by Apple. But You can get away with using a cheaper tablet when it comes to pixel art since you don't really need a super accurate pressure sensor!

The cheap drawing tablet will allow you to get a feel for digital art and begin building up your skill before you spend too much.

If you bought an iPad and decided you didn't like on-screen drawing, you'd be out a bit of money; likewise buying an expensive non-screen tablet and deciding you prefer on-screen.

A drawing tablet helps if you are already skilled/more comfortable with using a traditional pencil/paper and can be useful for drawing large scenes where you can do broad strokes.

personally I think it Depends on the size of art you're drawing. I prefer using a drawing pad for sizes 64x64px and above, otherwise a mouse works just fine for anything smaller than 64x64px. The mouse is definitely better for detail work, so use that to your advantage to clean up the sketchiness.

Advice on Graphics Tablet

Recommendations for drawing tablet? There are cheaper alternatives to wacom . Doesn't matter the brand, just check the reviews. I always recommend XP-Pen since I use their tablets daily and they never failed me. If you're looking for a premium drawing tablet at an affordable price, then the XP-PEN may be your best bet.

For starters get XP-Pen Deco or Star (see which size is best for you) - those are drawing tablets without screen, meaning you draw on them but look at your PC monitor, similar to a mouse but you have more control with drawing.

You can get a pretty cheap tablet, like aXP-Pen Star G640for around $40 on Internet. It is pretty thing, but it works really well, and if you don't have a lot of money, it is a good start.

If you want drawing tablet with screen, meaning you draw direcly onto the screen, get XP-Pen Artist.

I haveXP-Pen Artist 24 Prowhich is a huge drawing tablet so when i draw high resolution pixel art or 2D animation or drawing in general I use my tablet. I find it works really well, especially for pulling lines.

The tablet has a screen with 2K resolution , battery-free stylus, 2 roller wheels and 20 hot keys, which I really like. The colors are good, and the pressure sensitivity is amazing. It is on the large side, but XP-Pen makes five different sizes of screen tablet, so if you're interested, you can think about which one works best for you, I have the 24 inch one, the others are 11 and 22 inches I believe.

Best of all, it is way less expensive than most screen tablets (Their older versions are a little cheaper, and of course the smaller one is quite a bit less and the larger quite a bit more).

I prefer to draw directly on the screen . I begin my sprites by drawing the lineart on a canvas about four times larger than the final sprite size. Then, after I shrink the lineart to the desired size and clean it up, I fill in the colors and shading.

I am used to digital drawing and painting, so when working with pixel art, it seems very "natural" for me. Of course, with this, it can get a bit messy, and you'll have to clean up your work. If you're working with Aseprite, there is an option to clean up your work a bit called "Pixel-perfect". I prefer just erasing pixels I'm not using.

Conclusion

You don't need anything fancy to make good pixel art, and you can do fine even with just a good mouse and free software.

If you're already used to a mouse then continue with it, a lot of artists use mice and there's no real draw back (I use a mouse myself).

Ultimately just use whatever you are most comfortable with and you should be fine.

The artist makes the art, not the tool. But your tool, as an artist is actually your body.

Posted by: tiangao at 06:44 AM | Comments (68) | Add Comment
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April 25, 2018

Best Drawing Monitor Tablet XP-Pen Artist 22E for Professionals

The Artist 22E is an update of the XP-Pen Artist 22. The main obvious change is the addition of the Express Keys. The 22 had no Express Keys. (Those are buttons on the outside of the monitor, or sometimes on-screen keys, that can be programmed with software commands). The Artist 22E also uses A+ LED, which has better color quality than the 22.

The XP-Pen Artist 22E has two sets of keys, eight on each side, making life equally convenient for lefties, righties, and the ambidextrous. They mirror each other, so there are a total of 8 programmable keys, not 16. These are all on the outside. They are slightly raised.

The cords now get tucked vertically in the back. On theXP-Pen Artist 22 Graphic Monitor Tabletthey were in a row under the stand. They are now easier to reach. This version does not have speakers. (Installing it, though, may alter the speaker settings on your computer–it did on my Mac–so you may need to go and reset them to continue getting sound from your computer).

Since XP-Pen has included an HDMI to Mini Display Port adapter, you don’t need to buy anything additional to use it with a Mac.

To install the driver, you have to uninstall all other tablet drivers I had zero problems installing the driver on my Mac. On Windows, the tablet icon that you click to open the driver settings, didn’t appear, but I opened the driver settings in the folder.

If you’ve had other tablet drivers on your computer, you’re going to have to uninstall them and all remnants of them–this can be tricky. XP-Pen has a troubleshooting page for driver issues.

The driver lets you program the Express Keys, adjust your pressure sensitivity, test it by drawing with four colors, calibrate the touch points (4 or 9 points), and rotate the image on the screen in 90-degree increments.

It came well-packaged, not fancily, but safely. The accessories are all individually wrapped and put in one box. The box has a handy handle.

Portability
At around 17 lbs. including the stand and power supply, this (or any) large tablet monitor is not very portable. The handle on the box helps. The attached stand folds up. It’s not terribly heavy to pick up, though I would not want to walk around with it for long. The power brick is not that big.

For Lefties
The right- and left-hand columns of Express Keys make this a great choice for lefties.

Screen
The XP-Pen’s HD screen is bright . The XP-Pen screen is smoother, but isn’t too slippery. It’s fun to draw on. The screen doesn’t get that dark even with brightness turned all the way down. Turning it up increases color intensity.

The screen has been measured at 250 nits .
The pen squeaks a little on the screen once in a while but not often, and that should go away after a while. There were no dead pixels. There was a little dust on the outside of the monitor.

Screen protector
The screen protector had some bubbles that were difficult to get rid of. I also just preferred the feeling of the pen on the screen, so after trying the screen protector I removed it.

Pen

The pen needs to be charged via USB. A full charge takes about an hour and a half, but 30 minutes is enough to work for quite a while. The company says the pen can go up to 130 hours on one full charge. It has red and blue indicator lights showing when it’s charging or low.
The pen has no indentation to grip, but it’s comfortable to hold, and a good weight at 17g–a combination of light enough to not get tired, but giving some balance. The barrel has two buttons. They are easily reachable.

The default settings are right-click and erase, but you can change that in the driver settings. The pen does not have an eraser end. The buttons cannot be customized to keyboard shortcuts, but only to eraser and things your mouse does (right-click, etc.).

Art Software
Mac: I tested on Mac El Capitan: Photoshop, Illustrator, Manga Studio, Sketchbook, and the free programs Gimp, Inkscape, Paint Too Sai, Sculptris, and Krita. The pressure sensitivity worked great in all of them (I am not that familiar with Sculptris, a free 3d program, so I was not sure what to expect but the pressure did make a difference).

As expected, the pressure sensitivity doesn’t work in Illustrator; so far, Wacom Cintiqs and Intuos Pros have the monopoly on that. The pressure also, as expected, doesn’t work in the Inkscape calligraphy brush, since Inkscape is similar to Illustrator. You can still use the tablet in those programs, without pressure. Pressure sensitivity worked in vector layers in Manga Studio Pro, so you can draw in vector with this.

Windows: On Windows 10 I tested Photoshop, Gimp, and Sketchbook, and got the same results–works great.

Controls
There are basic controls on the bottom right. There are no speakers in the monitor, and when you attach it, you may have to change speaker settings to get sound in your computer as it may change the settings (this did happen and it’s on the XP-pen.com ). The driver settings let you test and adjust pen pressure, calibrate the screen to the pen, and set up the Express Keys.

On the bottom there are controls to adjust brightness, bring up the menu that allows some color adjustments, and the power on/off.

Out of the box, the Express Keys are on default settings that work in all programs. You can reprogram them to your favorite keyboard shortcuts using the driver settings. The pen’s two buttons are programmable as well, to mouse commands such as right and left-click, and eraser.

Drawing on the XP-Pen Artist 22E (https://www.amazon.com.au/XP-Pen-Artist22E-22-Inch-Display-Graphic/dp/B01M9EURM1)
Here’s a pen test showing pressing down harder and softer in Photoshop CC. I’m working on some more video.

Me drawing curlicues on the XP-Pen Artist 22E. You can see the pressure sensitivity at work.

Have to say I really enjoyed the XP-Pen Artist 22E for drawing. The lines are fluid, the pen sensitive. I adjusted it to a bit higher in pressure as it’s very sensitive at the lower areas. The driver, which Ugee and XP-Pen developed together, gives a springiness to drawing. XP-Pen (the company) also used to work with UC-Logic (the company), but no longer does.

Tip: On a Windows 10 computer, some programs, including Photoshop and Sketchbook, require "supports digital ink” to be ON in your PC tablet settings in order to get pressure sensitivity.

In Photoshop, remember to have Brush Shape Dynamics turned on.

There is a little parallax because of the glass. No jitter whether drawing forward, back, or faster I didn’t experience any hover issues.

The Verdict
I can’t find much to complain about. It works well and is great to draw on. This is a good professional or starter pen tablet monitor. It doesn’t have every feature of the Cintiq, so the decision should come down to how much you need those additional features. Customizable keys increase efficiency, but you can draw without using them at all if you prefer, or just use some.

ThisXP-Pen Artist 22E Drawing pen Tabletreview is a thumb’s up. The color is bright and vivid, and it gets most of the Adobe RGB. This is a great tablet if you want a large, responsive drawing surface to create digital art.

Posted by: tiangao at 02:41 AM | Comments (140) | Add Comment
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April 13, 2018

XP-PEN Artist 15.6 Drawing Tablet for artists Animation

With a plethora of drawing tablets available on the market today, it is becoming more and more difficult for artists everywhere to determine which tablet experience is the best for them. Drawing tablets for artists come in many shapes and sizes, with many different features and capabilities, making the decision tricky for those who aren’t sure of exactly what they need.

Some may want a basic experience, a tablet just to supplement and art hobby; others seek a tablet that can be used for professional work. The best drawing tablet for artists will enable you to draw, paint, write, upload, and share your digital art with ease. They are also great for children to help them learn how to draw or just to encourage them to get more creative. Below I have listed what I think are the best drawing tablets for artists on the market. There is truly a tablet for every budget. You don’t need to spend that much to get a great digital drawing or painting experience. With today’s technology even the entry level drawing tablets are a great piece of kit and will improve your digital art skills greatly.

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUYING THE BEST DRAWING TABLET FOR ARTISTS

Size – If your work involves illustration where the fine detail matters, a bigger tablet certainly helps, but it’s not always better. A small tablet takes up less space and is usually less expensive. Unless you really need a bigger screen, then a 4″ by 5″ or 6″ by 8″ should be perfectly suitable.

Connectivity – Make sure you get a tablet that will connect easily to your computer and possibly even your camera. Most modern computers will connect with USB or HDMI, cameras with mini HD or USB. However, older computers and cameras may not have these ports.

Accessories – Is the stylus any good? is the size and weight comfortable? What software and drivers come with the tablet and is there any that is incompatible? Do you need an untethered pen? That’s only a few questions but you get the idea.

Price – In general, a drawing tablet for artists will vary in performance in line with the monetary value. While there are brands now that are releasing more affordable tablets, not just for artists but for kids or students, professional tablets cost you significantly more. However, in return for a higher price you do get incredible performance from a professional tablet. They are an investment and my advice would be, where money is a factor, to go for the one that meets your needs rather than exceeds your needs. Remember, the best drawing tablet doesn’t have to cost you the earth.

This is the tablet XP-Pen Artist15.6HD that I have and I can’t recommend it enough!https://www.amazon.com.au/XP-Pen-Artist15-6-Graphics-Battery-free-15-6/dp/B077XX26ZS.

For artists with a large budget, very few tablets can top the XP-PEN Artist 15.6. Complete with a full interactive display on a large screen, this tablet combines the sensitivity of a drawing tablet with the display of a tablet computer, making it the ultimate drawing tool for artists of any level. The interactive display works as a functioning second monitor, allowing the user to essentially draw directly into programs as if they were drawing on paper. For those looking to make a long term investment in a drawing tablet, the XP-PEN Artist 15.6 should definitely be taken into consideration.

XP-Pen Artist 15.6 IPS Drawing Tablet Monitor Pen Display Graphics Digital Monitor with Battery-free Passive Stylus (8192 levels pressure).
Functions allow users to sketch, paint, design and edit directly from the tablet screen. Your work function will flow naturally and intuitively. Enjoy the high quality glass design which gives you high precision and prevents dust build up.

The latest Passive Pen design! Our PN03S stylus technology provides 8192 levels of instant pen pressure sensitivity―Providing you with groundbreaking control and fluidity to expand your creative output. No charging required!

15.6” 1920x1080 IPS 16:9 Display with 178° degree of visual angle delivers life-like colors, greater contrast, sharper, and vivid images..The XP-PEN Artist 15.6 Drawing Tablet driver can support 4k displays. Now you can enjoy every sharp detail.

Features USB Type-C input design, easy to plug in and out. Features come with a 11mm thin design, 3 in 1 cable, and a new brightness adjustment button. 6 fully customizable express keys create a highly ergonomic and convenient work platform. The one-click toggle allows you to switch between Pen and Eraser instantly.

We’ve adopted the newest F900 High Tech IC, to make lines flow smoother and perform better. Compatible with Windows 10/8/7/Vista, Mac OS version 10.8 or later, and major graphics software such as Photoshop, Painter, Illustrator, Clip Studio, and more.

Posted by: tiangao at 08:26 AM | Comments (169) | Add Comment
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