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This isn’t the normal request like “what laptop for £400”!
This is a bit of a big explanation but it’s probably needed to get the right help.
My wife is an illustrator - well she wasn’t until recently after having no work to go to in the middle of lockdown but she did study it at Uni and is now after many years in retail trying to make a go of it. She is a traditional physical media illustrator (mainly acrylics!) and does not get on well with computers at all. She’s ok with general office stuff though.
Anyway she wants to try and give digital painting a go so we went to try out an IPad Pro (the 12.9” one) at a shop with the Apple Pencil. She seemed to begin to get the hang of it so there is some interest there.
She also needs some sort of computing power to design a website and maintain it and generally run a business (I am using our only other Pc for my work at home).
After watching a lot of YouTube videos I have figured out that an iPad Pro, while really good, isn’t that great at being an office PC. A lot of people seem to go back to a desktop to get their general office stuff done, especially website design etc.
However buying an iPad Pro AND a pc as well is crazy expensive and something we aren’t comfortable doing as we don’t know how much use she will get out of the iPad. The new MacBook Pro M1 seems a good bet for a decent laptop so that’s a serious contender.
But then we start to consider that she is getting photos taken of her artwork which she may need to touch up and we might need a colour accurate monitor one day as well which seem to start at about £600.
So I’m thoroughly confused as to what to do. She really does need computing power now but I don’t want to buy something which will hinder things in 12 months time. An iPad Pro - especially if you buy the magic keyboard - is a very expensive mistake to make if it doesn’t get used much in 6 months time but I can’t seem to find any options to do digital art (NOT graphic design) such as Wacom kit that does the job as well as the iPad.
We aren’t wedded to Apple at all but she has an iPhone and buying into the Apple way of things might be really good to keep things simple for her as she’s not the greatest with computers.
I don’t mind paying for quality kit that will last and works well - I don’t want to buy the cheapest and regret it later.
Any advice? I think I’ve thought too much about it to be honest!!!
iPad + pencil is amazing, there’s nothing else like it, BUT if she’s a traditional illustrator does she actually need it for work or will it just be a toy? It’s also handy for doing the odd bit of work but no substitute IMO for a proper computer with a **** off monitor (ideally 2!). I wouldn’t even personally buy a laptop unless you needed it for portability for some reason?
If you’re happy spending M1 money then there’s nothing to touch it for the price IMO. There’s also the Mac Mini - very powerful plus you can hook up whatever monitor(s) you like. There were a couple of deals on Amazon today that popped up in HUKD.
Really excited by the M1 myself but will wait until they bring out an iMac - rumoured to be first half of this year for entry level & then a more powerful one in 2nd half of the year. Can see that being exceptional VFM if you need a powerful PC with a decent screen.
Is this a “proper” business I.e. can you offset the cost of equipment etc? Definitely takes the sting out of the Apple tax if so 😀
iPad + pencil is amazing, there’s nothing else like it, BUT if she’s a traditional illustrator does she actually need it for work or will it just be a toy? It’s handy for doing the odd bit of work but no substitute IMO for a proper computer with a **** off monitor (ideally 2!). I wouldn’t even personally buy a laptop unless you needed it for portability for some reason?
I think it’s because she wants to try and get into digital art (we saw the great results David Hockney gets on an iPad) and feels she is left out not getting into it.
She doesn’t have much space in her art room hence why we were thinking of a laptop but a small PC was something I was also thinking of combined with a 27” colour accurate monitor (I don’t think we would fit a bigger one in the room even wall mounted!).
Is this a “proper” business I.e. can you offset the cost of equipment etc? Definitely takes the sting out of the Apple tax if so 😀
Yes it will be a proper business but not earning anything yet so nothing to offset against yet!! She did get a redundancy payout which can pay for some kit though. Seems to be a hard business to get into so she is just enjoying painting and getting a style and a portfolio together.
Is she on Instagram? An Etsy account might be worth thinking about to sell work & advertise for commissions.
Yes on Instagram, Etsy seems like a waste of time from our (and friends) experiences. A lot of cheap small pieces which you have to pump hundreds out of to make any money. There’s so much cack on there and it seems to be just for simple what I would call crafts rather than proper artwork. She’s looking at getting prints made of her own artwork to sell - but as I said too early to make big decisions yet.
Long term you should be looking towards a PC or Mac with a Wacom tablet. That's what I use for Illustration work. I've not looked at the iPad pro and the Pencil but I probably should. My son has an ipad air so it intrigues me if nothing else.
If you're looking at a decent colour monitor then you're starting to look at spending a fair few quid. Think comfortably into 4 figures. The latest one by Dell is surprisingly good and better value than those by NEC and Eizo etc.
For doing a website you're probably better off with something like Squarespace or similar. They take an awful lot of the hassle out of setting up and running a website.
As a cheaper alternative to Wacom take a look at tablets by Huion and XP-Pen. They offer a drawing experience that’s just as good as a Wacom Cintiq but for half the price. Lots of online reviews and both Huion and XP-Pen can be had from Amazon.
I’ve got a Huion Kamvas Pro 13 paired with a 13” 2018 MacBook Pro and it works fine for me. Got both for well under £1000 total as both were refurbished.
I’m still shit at digital painting however but slowly working my way through a couple of Udemy courses to get me going. Seeing as COVID has made me unemployed again I’ve got some time on my hands to learn I guess.
Sons girlfriend does a lot of design and illustration stuff and uses a laptop with Wacom and external calibrated monitor. Not massive amount of work just now so she is currently working for Argos to supplement income!
As I understand it her stuff is not particularly processor intensive so a laptop copes fine. Its the 'feel' of the input and the quality of the screen.
I can’t comment on the tech question, but I will tell you that the way to start making a living as an illustrator whilst you’re waiting for commissions is to produce Adobe Illustrator bezier illustrations for stock agencies. Those illustrators do very well if they’re productive and good at it.
Long term you should be looking towards a PC or Mac with a Wacom tablet
I think it’s also worth specifying the distinctions between a ‘WACOM tablet’ such as the One (£35.99) and a ‘WACOM tablet’ such as the MobileStudio Pro 16 (£3199.00)
Adobe Illustrator bezier illustrations
Vector illustrations?
Hi. An illustrator here*.
I use a Macbook Pro with an external Apple monitor plugged into it. You really don't need a fancy color-calibrated monitor. A standard Apple job is more than up to the job. When it comes to colour calibration, you're better off working on developing a good relationship with a good local printer to play around with that at the print stage rather than spending a fortune on fancy kit. That'll be more beneficial and I'd strongly recommend doing that anyway. The printer I use (another mountain biker) is really pro-active and is always suggesting stuff to me. The advancement in digital print nowadays is bonkers.
I've got a Wacom tablet sat here gathering dust here because I just never got on with it. Your wife may be very different, but I produce everything in Adobe Illustrator. Don't forget to factor the cost of that in. An Adobe CC subscription is 50 quid a month. She'll need that. Money well spent as far as I'm concerned. Its the best tool for the job.
As most illustration work is vector-based you really don't need a lot of processing power at all. My Macbook is ancient by most people's standards and does the job perfectly well. You could get a refurb Mac that's a few years old and it'll be perfectly adequate for what you need. There's no need to be spanking a fortune on the latest wizzbang stuff from Apple, despite what they'd have you think.
If you want any advice about the reality of life as an illustrator, feel free to message me. It's a tough game that takes a long time to get yourself established, but it's a nice way to earn a living once you do.
* Self-promotion mode engaged - you can check out my stuff at adamrowlinson.co.uk
Mrs STR uses an ipad Pro & pencil
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I'm told by well informed people that the current iPad Air (4th generation) is very good value compared to the Pro and does work with the pencil. It's a few hundred pounds cheaper and the differences are smaller screen, touch id rather than face id, and the camera isn't as good. Maybe the screen size matters for illustration, but it might be worth considering.
https://www.apple.com/uk/ipad/compare/
I’ve got a Wacom tablet sat here gathering dust here because I just never got on with it. Your wife may be very different, but I produce everything in Adobe Illustrator.
A graphics tablet is a physical pointing device? whereas Illustrator is software? What do you use for input/pointing device?
way to start making a living as an illustrator whilst you’re waiting for commissions is to produce Adobe Illustrator bezier illustrations for stock agencies.
I’ll have to look up what all that means! Thanks for the tip.
you’re better off working on developing a good relationship with a good local printer to play around with that at the print stage rather than spending a fortune on fancy kit.
One thing she is getting done is some photos of her work to maybe get printed as low volume but high quality prints. We can’t seem to find anything in Yorkshire - any ideas?
WACOM tablet’ such as the One (£35.99) and a ‘WACOM tablet’ such as the MobileStudio Pro 16 (£3199.00)
Ahh I see. Crikey. Unfortunately there seems to be no way of trying these things out without actually buying them. Do people really spend thousands on this kit then find it’s useless for them? Nightmare.
Her Instagram - bear in mind she is only just starting out so be kind! (And follow her too). She is trying to develop a style at the moment but can really do anything. She has produced designs for fabrics and wallpaper in the past and the person who helped her sell them was blown away by the quality of her work but that contact disappeared and it’s hard to find out where to get someone else like that.
https://instagram.com/louise_atkin_illustration?igshid=11a8xot2cbyca
OP she is an illustrator in the classic sense by the looks of her Instagram (ie drawing, painting)
Digitally speaking, there is a fundamental difference between raster art and vector art. The former is quite literally illustration in the classic sense but instead of ink, charcoal, paint etc you draw/paint with pixels, while the latter is more of a process of construction using software (such as Adobe Illustrator) to build and manipulate lines, shapes, gradients. ie plot triangle, apply colour, stretch, etc.
Most digital illustrators would have some experience with both. Often the design is worked/sketched as a raster image and then over-traced as a vector. The reason being that vector art is near infinitely scaleable without losing it’s sharpness so is ideal for printing large.
If she is more into painting/drawing by hand using natural media then there are loads of apps/programs that have cropped up in recent years which mimic natural mediums and surfaces.
I use iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for that reason as I’m a painter and it suits my style, workflow preference.
I do also use it for small vector art projects, as I don't do many. If doing mainly vector art then a large monitor and PC would possibly be the way to go.
In short
Likes painting and drawing directly? - then iPad or graphic monitor/tablet + stylus + Procreate app
Likes designing things with/from patterns and shapes, ie tattoos, logos, clip art, etc? - then PC and monitor + Adobe Illustrator
Has bags of dosh? Buy it all, all I say! Gigantic Star-Trek Control Room-Sized tiltable Cintiq as you draw and paint all day and night long, in your minimally-decorated Swedish balcony-room, overlooking the distant forest? Perfect 😉
Digitally speaking, there is a fundamental difference between raster art and vector art. The former is quite literally illustration in the classic sense but instead of ink, charcoal, paint etc you draw/paint with pixels, while the latter is more of a process of construction using software (such as Adobe Illustrator) to build and manipulate lines, shapes, gradients. ie plot triangle, apply colour, stretch, etc.
Ahhh I see. I can’t see her doing vector stuff at all then. Thanks for the clarification.
ordinarily I'd agree (have bought about 10 refurb Macs!) buuuuuut the new M1 stuff is so game-changing in terms of performance for the price that, provided it's in budget, it's really hard to recommend an Intel Mac at the moment! (Plus a newer machine will be able get a few more years of CC updates)My Macbook is ancient by most people’s standards and does the job perfectly well. You could get a refurb Mac that’s a few years old and it’ll be perfectly adequate for what you need.
as said it's totally different really BUT possibly a useful skill to have and tbh not hard to develop if you've already got an eye for design/bit of artistic flair (plus a lot quicker to knock up decent looking stuff once well practised)... opens up the door to other kinds of work like the aforementioned stock illustrations, logos & other commercial work etcAhhh I see. I can’t see her doing vector stuff at all then. Thanks for the clarification.
My monitor is a mid-range Dell and only cost a few hundred quid, and has a 'sRGB' button in the menus and claims to be 99% accurate. Most likely good enough unless you're proofing magazine prints and in that case you'll be wanting to spend a *lot* more on a monitor and balanced ambient lighting. You just don't want a really cheap monitor with terrible colour balance.
The new Mac Mini plus a reasonable monitor will be a good performer (the Mini is the fastest of the M1 models, due to the fan) and give you a large screen to work on for post-processing. Alternatively if the computer is just for "office" work then I can't recommend the new MacBook Air enough, I got one in December (cheapest model) and am now selling my old 15" Macbook Pro: larger, heavier, noisier, slower.
As above the iPad Air is a more affordable model that is Pencil-friendly but has a screen bigger than A5. Also you can technically run iPad apps on the M1 Macs so it would be interesting to see if something like ProCreate adapts into a hybrid ipad/mac application where the iPad is a traditional tablet on steroids.
ProCreate and the Pencil on the iPad really is quite something. We have it on a normal old iPad (sixth gen) and even as someone with no creative talent it's quite impressive. I've seen timelapses by people with talent and it's like they're using real materials but can edit it afterwards.
iPad Pros are really good for drawing. Like, really fantastic tools. I've never used a Wacom for any length of time, but despite being very well-versed in Photoshop, I can't imagine Wacom + Photoshop being as easy, intuitive and fluid as Procreate on an iPad, particularly for someone who's relatively new to digital art.
No one has mentioned the Surface PCs which I am surprised about. I've never used one but perhaps they offer the best of both worlds (decent drawing experience, more PC-like interface)?
It's been a while since I tried to use the original iPad Pro as a main computer, it didn't work out for me - too restrictive an eco-system for my tastes. Your wife may be different though and there's no denying that the current iPad Pros are very powerful machines. Plus, the iPad OS has improved substantially in the last year or so. Whether that translates into being able to do what she needs is the question. How does your computer-illiterate wife plan to make websites? Genuine question. If she has no real aspirations to get too technical with website building I'm sure it can all be done on an iPad using SquareSpace or similar.
If I was her, I'd get the big iPad and a Pencil. Then if she finds out later she needs an office PC as well, I'd would probably seek out a cheap old non-laptop (Windows?) PC.
P.S. The pictures on Instagram are great! I wish I could draw like that.
You could get a refurb Mac that’s a few years old and it’ll be perfectly adequate for what you need.
To be fair, I got the basic Macbook Air in December and for my micro benchmark of "how fast can it HDR blend a photo in Lightroom" it's faster than my 2015 15" Macbook Pro which is £1000+ in refurbished stores. And that's with Lightroom not running natively, so expect it to speed up when they update it.
ProCreate and the Pencil on the iPad really is quite something. We have it on a normal old iPad (sixth gen) and even as someone with no creative talent it’s quite impressive. I’ve seen timelapses by people with talent and it’s like they’re using real materials but can edit it afterwards.
Yes - the Mrs uses Procreate
No one has mentioned the Surface PCs which I am surprised about. I’ve never used one but perhaps they offer the best of both worlds (decent drawing experience, more PC-like interface)?
I've got a Surface Pro 7 and maybe I'm not using it properly, but I've always found it a bit aswkward for writing, never mind drawing
Vector illustrations?
Yeah, that’s the word I was looking for.
If I was her, I’d get the big iPad and a Pencil. Then if she finds out later she needs an office PC as well, I’d would probably seek out a cheap old non-laptop (Windows?) PC.
That was my thinking too. I’m wondering if the iPad Air would be a good choice to combine with a cheaper windows PC, would get both for the price of an iPad Pro.
What's her intended market?
I'm not an artist, but a printer, and from what I see physical originals still command a higher price than a digital 'original'. It's the old perception of value thing - like vinyl -v- download.
Digital artists seem to make their money by up-selling multiple canvas prints for family and friends/cushions/mugs/phone cases etc.
Digital artists seem to make their money by up-selling multiple canvas prints for family and friends/cushions/mugs/phone cases etc.
We’ve discussed this and it seems that sort of work you’ve constantly got to think about what sells rather than creating something you love and getting other people to like it by developing exposure and selling from there.
I see a lot of recommendations for the iPad Air and iPad Pro, but none for the standard iPad.
We bought the cheapest available 6th gen (£250) and a Pencil (v1 - £84) and it's absolutely superb. (we also have a wacom tablet (not the screen type) and most of us prefer the iPad).
A copy of Procreate (£10) and you'll be all set.
Then if you're buying a laptop - just make sure you get an IPS screen with at least 100% SRGB coverage and 300nits brightness. If you can afford a macbook, great, but otherwise a £500 Lenovo ideapad can do a great job. It doesn't even have to be a new one.
There's a lot of talk above about what a professional setup would look like, but most of the advantages are workflow speed related - you can get the job done with a lot less.
Even though I have a pretty sophisticated setup as my main (self-employed designer) system, I also like to carry on working in my campervan and cope perfectly well with a 6 year old laptop that you can probably pick up for £350. There's nothing it can't do - it's just a bit slower.
I think what we will do it wait to try out an iPad Air with a V2 Pencil and see how well it works. Apparently the Air 4 is as good as a Pro in many respects and several hundred pounds cheaper. We have an Air 2 which isn’t compatible with any of the Apple pencils which we can sell/trade in to offset the cost to about £600 for the iPad alone (256gb version).
Then we can look at the “everyday” computing. I think if she has a nice ipad a MacBook Pro might be too much of an overlap as we will already have a mobile device. Instead a smaller form factor windows PC with a decent screen will be great in her studio and probably won’t cost the Earth. I’d probably build it myself to get exactly what we need. As far as I can tell we don’t need a fancy graphics card so a Ryzen 5 CPU with the integral Radeon graphics should be plenty enough, couple it with 16gb ram and a nice SSD and we should have a quiet powerful PC which should do what is asked of it for a long time. I’m a big believer of getting a decent PSU/case/fans which can be a long term keeper and upgradable later down the line if needed.
Thanks for all your help.
One possible reason for going with a Mac Mini rather than Windows PC (apart from the obvious 😉) is you can use an iPad Air/Pro and Pencil as a 2nd monitor and graphics tablet (officially now thru Sidecar and a number of 3rd party apps also). There was some grumbling about Sidecar when it came out but it has been out a while now so might've seen improvement. Not actually updated to Catalina yet so haven't tried it out for myself!!
Update - I’ve just ordered a ASUS PN50 mini Pc - Ryzen 5 4500U processor with Radeon 7 graphics, 500gb M.2 drive and 16gb ram. It’s tiny, has USB-C ports and will be quiet and out of the way (going to mount it on the side of her desk).
https://www.asus.com/Displays-Desktops/Mini-PCs/All-series/Mini-PC-PN50/
With that I’ve order a Dell Utrasharp 2520D monitor, 25” 1440p monitor (can’t fit a bigger one in the room) which is meant to be very colour accurate despite only being £330.
Total cost around £775 and it will give her all she needs for the moment and probably for a while to come. It’ll be out of the way most of the time and can be used to watch Sky Go and Netflix etc while she is painting then bring out a Bluetooth keyboard when she needs it.
We decided against the iPad in the end as it won’t do what she needs to do right NOW, it might be an option in the future though.
Thanks all for the help.
If I'm not too late the the Affinity graphics software is currently available at 50% off and a 90 day trial before you buy to check you get on with it. Around £70 for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign equivalents.