Post Punk Kitchen Forum

This question is on behalf of Fishy Chips:

what's a good software product that can be used for drawing manga? She has a windows platform and likely will buy herself one of these Bamboo tablets for drawing [my question is if those are still the standard or if an ipad would just be better and simpler- note that we have no Mac platform at home aside from the ipad].
We don't know anyone who actually draws/uses software, so don't have any first hand opinions. My (torque's) first inclination is to tell her to look for open source stuff since that's my tendency, but i want to ask Real Artists what they think.

Thank you!

I'd go for the Wacom tablet over an iPad. The iPad is great fun doodling, but the output resolution is limited. I'd definitely get any of the Wacoms over a no name brand. Wacom is amazing. I can still get drivers for my 13 year old tablets!

I know there are to s of manga specific drawing apps, so some probably have trial versions.

Thanks for the feedback on the tablet. That was her assumption, so I'm glad to see she was right. Even better to hear your tablets lasted so long, good sign!

we are working through some pages giving breakdowns on manga and drawing apps. little by little....

The only ones that don't work are the serial port ones!

Their driver support is amazing. I have a super expensive 12x12 from over a decade ago and it still works great, even under all the new operating systems.

The surface can wear out with heavy use though. The tablet will still work, but isn't as smooth to use. The pen nibs can and do wear out, so don't lose the extras you get, or if you get a cheaper one that doesn't come with extra nibs, plan to buy a replacement pen at some point.

The extra pressure sensitivity is nice, but unless she is a pro at it, she probably wouldn't notice the difference between models at this point.

I'd love a new tablet, but since my old ones all work, just without the newer features, I haven't been able to justify one. Boo.

I've heard some good things about Manga Studio, though I've never used it myself. But as Lavawitch suggested, they do offer a trial version to play around with before purchasing (you can use the program free for 30 days).

thank you thank you!

LW, since she's a beginner, i also think that there's no need to go top of the line yet. She didn't find the wacoms here, only no-names, and the cheapest one we found was $500 (thanks Brazil)... US$70 on Amazon, so it was crapola. So we'll get her looking for more. We'll have some months to research and hopefully be up in the US in July and buy it then.

The bamboo fun is a wacom tablet.