Digital Art for Beginners (2020 Edition)

you want to draw you want to get into art cool here's a pencil and a paper and you're like no no no I want to draw on that that computer looking thing but maybe you're not sure where to start you want to get something good but you don't want to wind up like your uncle who lost all his money investing in that burrito Factory well you my friends are in luck because today's video is all about digital art for beginners hello my name is Brad and I review tech for creative professionals we're talking about illustrators designers that one guy who has this amazing startup idea he just needs to figure out the logo first intro to digital art we're talking about a huge topic here and so I've boiled it down to three sections the first section we're gonna be talking about is the hardware what do you need what do you need to buy in order to start drawing digitally the second part we're gonna be covering is the software what apps are even out there what's good to draw what's gonna help you out and the third part is all about the art itself once you get your hardware and your software set up then what do you do where do you practice how do you get started how do you get better so we're gonna be covering a lot of ground and we're gonna be doing it pretty quickly so I'm not gonna really have time to get into the details of a lot of these things especially what I'm talking about the apps that what I'm using or the hardware that I'm talking about but I have links to all of that stuff if you just type in Brad dot site slash start you're gonna get to my page where I'm gonna list links to my other reviews and resources that you can use that I'm talking about in this video are you ready I know I'm ready can we get a funky beat up in here no I was think I was thinking more like something danceable maybe I don't know I'm a hardware hardware comes in all shapes and sizes and unfortunately all kinds of prices we're talking $20 for the cheapest little Hui on tablet all the way up to thousands for like the Wacom Cintiq pros so you're starting out you want the cheapest thing in the world no commitment a pen tablet isn't a bad place to start there these little flat tablets they don't have screens that come with a pen they plug into your computer draw on the tablet with your pen a line appears on the computer screen in front of you it's kind of like a fancy Mouse I made a whole video on the cheapest one you're gonna find which is called the Huyen 420 okay I know it's it's a funny name we can stop leaving comments now the 420 is only 20 bucks and it totally works if you're willing to spend a little bit more though you can get a huge jump in quality with something like wah comes entry-level Intuos tablet XP pens deco pro is really good whoo-hee ons HS 610 is worth looking into these are gonna give you a lot larger of a drawing area which is gonna make it easier to do a lot of detail work without having to zoom in also the pen quality on these things they're a big jump up from that $20.00 tablet I know they cost more but this is one area where you can get a lot more bang for your buck by jumping up a level or two one drawback to these and probably the biggest drawback to these is you have to train yourself how to use them it's like learning to ride a bike again because your image is on the screen in front of you and your pen your drawing down here while looking over there you've got to build up that eye hand coordination it could be tough a lot of people like myself included find it just a lot easier to draw on the screen and that's where our next category comes into play we're talking about pen displays in fact I've got one right here it's really big I could use a handgun these things come in all sizes and shapes this one here is a 22 inch or I'm gonna put you down buddy these are monitors that plug into your computer and you can draw on them directly using the included pen there's one crazy important thing about these you need to know you need a computer these don't work without a computer it needs to be plugged in to a computer it looks like an iPad it looks like a Windows tablet it's not there's no computer here it's just a screen albeit a fancy screen you could draw on but it's still just a screen these come in all sizes and shapes and price points and quality levels and I've reviewed a ton of these they're gonna work on Windows computers they're gonna work on Mac computers really well one thing to know they don't really work on Chromebooks unfortunately at least not yet price-wise you can find this cute little XP pen 12-inch starting about $200 on Amazon who Eon makes a really good 12-inch - it's not that much more expensive if you want to get a brand name like Wacom the newer Wacom one it's a little bit bigger it's gonna run you about $400 I personally really like the 16 ensures the 16 inches are a little bit bigger so you're gonna see the interface it's easier to tap on things using the pen however its small enough that when you're not using it you could slide it to the side now the bigger ones on the other hand you could use those as your primary monitor most of them are pretty easy to just prop up in front of you at a normal angle when you're not drawing but they are big they're gonna take up most of your desk one thing to note is these inexpensive ones they do not have touchscreens the Pens work on the screens your fingers not so much Wacom Cintiq Pro line does have touchscreens those are really nice but they're also pretty expensive touch is nice but I often turn it off because palm rejection is hit or miss and I'm always accidentally you know turning off layers or turning on the wrong tool with the palm of my hand lastly we have these all-in-one tablets that you can draw on something like the surface pro or the iPad or Android tablets these are full-blown computers that you can get a pen for and draw directly on them of course the drawback here is since you're having everything right there these are gonna be significantly more expensive at least usually you can get an Android tablet to draw on for $200 that's fairly inexpensive for this category but also the quality is really mad not very good if you're in the market for a brand new computer a Windows two-in-one might be a great option for you because you're not only getting your drawing tablet but you're getting your computer at the same exact time of use all of these some of them have great pens like this HP some of them like this Acer are really amazing computers but I wasn't that impressed with the pen so from tablet to tablet computer to computer that depends here can be hit or miss they're not necessarily designed specifically for art and so that's something to pay attention to before you invest a lot of money I personally do most of my work on the iPad pro it's also pretty expensive but the entry-level iPad does work with the Apple pencil now and it's a surprisingly good experience in fact it's just as good of the drawing experience as you're gonna get on the iPad pro that entry-level iPad with a pencil is gonna set you back about four hundred and twenty nine dollars which is a lot of money but dollar for dollar it is a really good value and if you're just starting out in digital art you're getting a lot for your money no compromise drawing experience you can watch movies on it there's some great drawing apps you get the idea so let's talk about software it's still a little off on the music here guys to draw on your computer you're going to need an app or a program that you can draw in and you guys you guys there are some great programs that are absolutely free there are some great programs that you could pay for too but there's three that are definitely worth checking out if you already spent all your money on your hardware and you want to get into the software game kind of inexpensively to just start learning the first one of those is Krita I would go to credit org I think it costs money in the Windows Store but if you go to the website that one's free there's another one called Autodesk SketchBook it's free you have to make an account and login but it's available on several platforms as well as well and the last one is Medi bang pro which again is free it's available on pretty much everything so that's worth checking out to some of the apps I like to use personally on the iPad I like procreate I like the fluidity of pinching and zooming and being able to use touch gestures to control things on a Windows tablet for the same reasons I like an app called sketch Apple a little bit more expensive but still a really good drawing sketching app if you need to go with some pro level software creative design software Photoshop is is really good it's really big it's also really expensive comes with a monthly subscription price tag another one if you don't want to spend that much money is affinity photo an affinity designer I think affinity designer is probably better for illustration you know that's a one-time cost of $40 on the iPad and I think $60 on the desktop but there's so many other apps out there paint tool side clip studio there's some really good ones you just have to do some digging one thing to keep in mind is not every piece of software is available on every single platform for example Photoshop at least full Photoshop is only available on the desktop not necessarily the iPad and definitely not Android goes the other way too one of my favorite drawing apps procreate not available for anything other than the iPad something to keep in mind if you have your favorite drawing app that you want to use is make sure that you're buying into the platform that you can actually use it on [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] part three let's get to the drawing and it looks like you guys got the music going pretty well now good job now you're ready to start and the real question is is where and how well good news is you're already on YouTube and I think this is the best platform to start on there are so many drawing tutorials available for free right here if you just go up to that search box and at the end of this video I'll put in a playlist of some of my tutorials so if you want to check those out go for it there are also paid resources out there I've been taking a figure drawing course by someone named proko now this is a couple hundred dollars so it's not exactly cheap but this is like one of the best figure drawing courses in the world taught by one of the best teachers of this in the world and you're getting it for a couple hundred dollars here in the US if you went to art school for a class like that it would cost thousands so it is possible if you're driven enough and you don't need direct feedback from professors to buy online courses and take college-level courses basically at home and teach yourself you can even just learn how to use one app at a time for example I have courses on procreate and illustrator an affinity designer I'll link those down below so here's here's the thing I want you to keep in mind let's let's let's do a little close-up here okay this is a bad idea so here's where I'd start if I was starting from scratch brand new today and just learning art one there's a reason that you've gotten into digital art there's a reason that you have an interest in this maybe you want to illustrate your own stories maybe you want to create your own characters maybe you want to add some flair to your design work or something like that there is a reason so the first thing I would say is draw what you love make sure that there is some passion behind it because if there is you're going to continue to learn and you're going to continue to drive yourself forward the second thing I would do is I would intersperse that with like lessons find things you're not good at realistic faces backgrounds hands oh I hate hands but go out find tutorials on how to do those things and mix that in with your passion work what you want to do is you want to do what you love while also growing at the same time if you just do the thing that you enjoy doing you're gonna find yourself sticking in a rut you're gonna find yourself drawing symbols and you're gonna draw them over and over and over again you're not gonna learn anything new but I often find if I just dive in and try to teach myself something new every single time the same thing happens it gets stale I lose interest you have to find that balance so if you're just starting out do the thing you love but also put in little lessons in between where you could learn new things so what you're gonna find looking back 2 3 4 5 months later you're gonna start to see your work incrementally improve takes patience takes time it's totally worth it keep it up so if you're wondering where do I go next go over here to some videos where you can learn some more things some of the other work that I've done also subscribe to this channel to keep up with things in the future so that's all I have for today thank you guys for watching really appreciate it and I'll talk to you in a couple of days [Music]

Channel: Brad Colbow

Views: 2,475,568

Rating: 4.9478674 out of 5

Keywords: tech, technology, art, illustration, drawing, wacom, ipad, apple pencil, procreate, review

Id: 0RmGV5wALG0

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 24 2020

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