Digital Drawing Setup Basics

Drawing on the computer is fun and awesome. Here’s how to get started.

Equipment

Software. Photoshop, Painter, GIMP – anything that takes tablet input. Choice depends on your budget and operating system. I like Photoshop, though I admittedly have no experience with the more drawing-specific alternatives.

Pressure sensitive drawing tablet. I’m a fan of Wacom hardware, which is popular among the pros for good reason – it works. A Bamboo or Graphire will suffice for those on a budget. I personally sprung for an Intuos. Bigger is not necessarily better. My 6″x8″ tablet feels just about perfect.

Scanner. For those who prefer to sketch on paper and finish up digitally. Look here for a primer on scanning into Photoshop.

Setup

Now that you have your shiny new tablet, refer to this excellent guide for suggested button customization and tips on working within a drawing program. Though geared toward Photoshop, it has enough general purpose advice and a few specific pointers for other software.

I work at 240 dpi with an image size 4x that of the finished drawing. This lets me make a wide variety of line widths with a brush large enough to draw smoothly without the jagged interpolation that happens with tiny brush sizes. You may need to go bigger for an especially detailed piece.

I sketch and ink with the same customized Photoshop brush. To use it as a marker, turn off the opacity control by unchecking Other Dynamics. Download the brush, or just set it up yourself.

• Brush Tip Shape – Soft round 5 pixel, Hardness 0%, Spacing 25%
• Shape Dynamics – Size Jitter: Pen Pressure, Minimum Diameter 11%
• Dual Brush – Soft Round 4 pixel, Spacing 25%, Scatter 0%, Count 1
• Other Dynamics – Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter: both set to Pen Pressure
• Smoothing – Enabled