Want HW/SW recommendations for learning to make digital art

[jeffh4]

Howdy.

My 8 year-old girl would like something special for X-Mas, and it's up to daddy to make sure that happens!  She wants to learn how to make art on a computer.  It can be a program on a tablet, PC, or game device.  Some ideas that my wife and I have been looking into:

- Nintendo 3DS with the program New Art Academy
- PC with Photoshop (CS 3) and tablet (Wacom CTE-440 4" tablet).  I have these items already, maybe a series of YouTube videos with this?
- Nook/Fire with to-be-specified app(s)
- iPad it out of our price range (we've got 3 other kids to shop for!)

Katrina is taking sculpting, painting, and drawing classes during the summers and we've had fantastic art teachers so far.  Now she'd like to move into the digital medium. 

I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Thanks,

[Ignuus66]

I'd suggest a decent laptop with Gimp, perhaps a tablet. (edit: with a touch pen)

[Tapewolf]

Tricky.

I'm not sure a tablet device like an iPad or Nook really has what it takes.  Have you used one?  Doing art on a capacitive screen is like finger-painting, or trying to sculpt clay while wearing gauntlets.  The contact area is massive and you can't see what you're doing because your finger is covering it up.  Maybe with a stylus it's a little better, but the screens and UI really were not designed for this kind of usage.

The general consensus seems to be that tablet devices are handy devices for checking email, browsing and playing certain types of game, but they are ill-suited for anything creative.

On the other hand, Photoshop costs more than the PC to run it on, let alone an iPad.  I checked, you could get three Nexus 7s for the cost of one Photoshop license on Amazon, and still have enough left over to snag a Wacom Bamboo.  Elements you could probably get away with, that's almost a tenth of the cost but I don't know how much you lose in the process.
For free, there is always GIMP, which unless you're doing pre-press stuff covers most of what Photoshop does.  The bits which GIMP can't do, Elements won't either AFAIK.  Some say that GIMP is less intuitive - having used both, I can't honestly say that Photoshop is intuitive either - it's just a matter of which one you pick up first, I think.

I think the DS uses a resistive screen, so with a tablet stylus you'd get reasonably good results.  However the screen is tiny and I'm not sure you can do anything useful with the images afterwards.

For proper creative work, a PC would definitely be the way to go, and you can get a pretty cheap but serviceable laptop for less than an iPad these days.

[Mao]

I second what Tape said, but also note that GIMP isn't quite what you want either, Paint Tool SAI, OpenCanvas and many, many more art programs are out there.  I used gimp for a few years before switching over to SAI and have seen many artists dance between SAI and PS.

[Ignuus66]

I second what Tape said, but also note that GIMP isn't quite what you want either, Paint Tool SAI, OpenCanvas and many, many more art programs are out there.  I used gimp for a few years before switching over to SAI and have seen many artists dance between SAI and PS.

I guess Sai is better than Gimp is some aspects, but if you will dabble with image editing and/or making images with scripts, then Gimp is superior (in my baseline opinion anyway, but I may be biased towards gimp as that is what I mainly use)

If you have the money for it however, I recommend getting a pen tablet (price for decent screen sized ones ranges from 70-400 dollars with some going over.)
Newegg link, good for seeking out what you want to buy: http://www.newegg.com/Graphics-Tablets/SubCategory/ID-296?&cm_sp=Input29-_-VisNav-_-GraphicTablets

[LionHeart]

Also note that many pen tablets often come with software included in the package - usually some version of Photoshop Elements.

I myself have used Elements for many years, and found it to be more than adequate for my needs.

Wacom is definitely the brand when it comes to pen tablets - I've used mine for some years and it still works as well as it did when new.

[Merlin]

Yeah, tablets usually either come packaged with Corel or Adobe drawing software. And otherwise, Gimp is fine and free. I think for a beginner you don't really need a super-fine tablet, it takes ages to pick up just the movement and stuff, so one of the cheaper model would do (as long as it still has some touch-sensitivity).

Mind you, you don't need a tablet to do digital art. All you really need is the PC and software. I used a mouse for years and years - for inking and colouring. It was pretty fun.

You can skimp on the PC a bit too if you're not doing anything too intensive. My work machine is a beast built for 3d rendering, but I do all my drawing work on a tiny Eee PC that cost less than my tablet and that works just fine for it. Sometimes a little slow, but I work at like 400dpi so there's probably that.

A 3DS for drawing would probably be fun but IDK how good it would be to draw on such a tiny screen.

[Tapewolf]

Yeah, tablets usually either come packaged with Corel or Adobe drawing software.

I should emphasise that Merlin is thinking of graphics tablets such as a Wacom, not a tablet computer such as an iPad or Nexus.  Just to be clear, since some smartarse decided they should both be called 'tablet' ;-)

And yes, one of the 10" or 11" Eee PCs would work fine.