One of the best investments you can make as a 3d artist in Blender is a drawing tablet, or sometimes referred to as a pen tablet.
With a lot of options on the market it can sometimes be a daunting task picking the right one with the compatibility and features required for Blender. From personal experience I can conclude.
When buying a drawing tablet for Blender the main features you need to have are.
- Responsive Pressure Sensitivity
- Reasonable Working Space
- Compatible Drivers
- Function Buttons
There are lots of products on the market that tick these boxes but in short I would recommend the following.
In this article we will discuss why each of these features are important for 3d art, and what to look for when purchasing a Drawing Tablet for Blender
What is A Drawing Tablet
A drawing tablet is basically an oversized touch pad that you can connect to your computer similar to that of one on a laptop, however with some very unique and useful functionality.
Drawing tablets utilize a Pen to not only control the mouse but to adjust pressure sensitivity based on how hard you press. This is extremely useful as it means you can link functions such as brush strength or size to it to give you a level of control you wouldn’t have with a mouse.
The other key benefit is the size. Because of this you are able to treat your screen as if your drawing on a piece of paper, achieving the straight lines and precision you wouldn’t be able to achieve with a mouse.
Do You Need A Drawing Tablet for Blender
By far the biggest reason you would consider buying a drawing tablet for Blender is pressure sensitivity and precision.
If the tasks you are performing do not benefit from this then a drawing tablet isn’t necessary.
Tasks such as sculpting and texturing are probably the most suited to tasks for a Drawing Tablet and you can really benefit from using one. The pressure sensitivity helps adjust brush strength whereas the precision helps get each stroke to look exactly how you want it to.
If the tasks you are performing in Blender only rely on clicking buttons or dragging items it really isn’t necessary. Such tasks include animation, composition and rendering.
If you are still undecided whether investing in a drawing tablet will be beneficial to you I encourage you to check out my article here on whether you need a drawing tablet for Blender.
Do All Tablets Work With Blender
Most tablets will work just fine with Blender being a popular well known program most brands particularly the bigger brands have ensured it functions perfectly.
Brands such as Wacom, Huion & XP-Pen to name a few will have no trouble with compatibility issues
What Feature Do You Require in a Drawing Tablet
It is important to understand that drawing tablets are not only used for 3d art but also for 2d art as well. Both of which have different requirements. For 3d art in Blender the following are the key things to consider when purchasing a tablet.
Responsive Pressure Sensitivity
Pressure Senensitivty is by far the biggest advantage of using a drawing tablet for Blender.
When performing tasks such as sculpting in Blender it allows you to adjust particularly the strength of your stroke simply by pressing a little harder. This allows you to more organically sculpt without having to constantly adjust sliders.
As you can see in the above example the kind of line you can get with a mouse is different to that of a tablet. The mouse is all one size and very uniform whereas the tablet is more organic. While this is good when you want that kind of stroke, when sculpting characters or instance you need the organic stroke of a tablet.
When purchasing a drawing tablet it is pretty standard to have 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity this is basically a measure of how responsive a brush is to pressure. Some cheaper ones with will have half of that with 4096 levels.
What Pressure Sensitivity is Recommended?
8192 levels is preferred for Blender however 4096 is adequate.
This ensures if you need to make any adjustments to the pressure curve (how hard you need to press to get the desired result) you still have a reasonable amount of levels to do so.
For example if you had a pen with 8192 levels of sensitivity and wanted to only press half as hard to get a full strength stoke, you can adjust the pen to do so. However this means you now only have half the range (4096) levels of pressure sensitivity to do so. This is more than enough.
Reasonable Working Space
A medium sized drawing tablet (about A4 size) seems to be the best fit for working with Blender. All drawing tablet sizes are advantageous for use in Blender, however a medium size is the right fit for ease of navigation and ergonomics.
With a large tablet you may find yourself having trouble to work comfortably around its size.
With a small drawing tablet it can get a little difficult navigating as it requires a more exact movement.
It is important to understand that the size of the tablet scales to your monitor a small tablet will require smaller movements to navigate as opposed to a large tablet.
This is of course subjective to you personal preference. I urge you to consider what is best for you as it will greatly affect your experience using the tablet.
Compatible Drivers
Compatible drivers is something to consider when purchasing a drawing tablet for Blender.
Fortunately the vast majority of tablets are compatible so this is less of a concern. Most tablets will work just fine. Particularly those of well known brands such as Wacom, Huron and XP-Pen.
My advice would be to choose a well known brand so you know they work, will continue to work and be updated in the foreseeable future.
A useful user interface can also go a long way. Being able to make adjustments to function buttons, convert the tablet to left handed and have presents for not only Blender but other programs you may use in the future can be really handy.
Programable Function Buttons
Having programmable function buttons are by far not essential but are great to have. They allow you to map keyboard shortcuts to them to avoid having to use a keyboard for some actions.
Unfortunately with Blender you probably cant avoid using the keyboard all together as a lot of the user interface is based around keyboard shortcuts. There just isn’t enough buttons!!!
You can however utilze these keys while sculpting for instance by mapping them to functions such as undo, smoothing or inverting the brush.
Probably my favourite use of the keys is when it comes to slider keys. For example a lot of tablets come with a wheel that can be turned or controlled with touch. In the image above this is the circle button on the Wacom tablet.
This is great as it means you can link it to stuff like brush size controlling it with one hand while taking advantage of the pen pressure sensitivity to control brush strength with the other. It really helps with the flow of your sculpting.
Are There Left Hand Drawing Tablets
Drawing tablets can be converted from right handed to left handed by utilizing the software that comes with the tablet.
To use a tablet left handed it usually requires you to flip the tablet upside down so that the buttons usually located on the left are on the right. This means you can draw with your left while accessing buttons on the right.
This of course means any drawing you do on the tablet is upside down so you need to go into the settings to adjust.
When purchasing a drawing tablet for Blender it is worth double checking that the manufacture has this functionality enabled. Brands such as Wacom, Huron and XP Pen do.
Recommendations
In my personal opinion the best tablets on the market at the moment are.
Wacom Intuos Pro Medium
This tablet is what I am currently using and I can safely say its great!!!
Wacom Tablets are well known for their quality. The feel of the pen is comfortable and sculpting with it feels really natural. The tablet itself is very sturdy and feels really premium.
My current Intious Pro is nearly 5 years old. Regardless of this fact it in no ways seems close to needing to be replaced. Wacom still regularly support it with updates so I can say with confidence its a good investment.
This is probably the most expensive option on the market but in my opinion its a fantastic investment for years to come.
It has everything you could want from a drawing tablet including 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, lots of space to work with and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.
Huion Inspiroy H1161
The Huion Inspiroy H1161 is a great tablet and is a brand that is quite popular. Best of all its a quarter of the price of the Wacom Intuos Pro. Don’t let the price fool you however it is packed with functionality and everything you could need. It just not quite as nice quality as the Wacom Intuos Pro.
It is loaded with function buttons 10 press buttons and 16 soft touch buttons and a slider to control brush size or whatever other function you would like to apply to it.
The pen has 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and a reasonable amount of drawing space. It is even Android compatible so you can connect it to your Phone.
In my opinion it is exceptional value particularly if you are on a Budget.
XP-Pen Deco Pro Medium
The XP-Pen Deco Pro is an awesome Drawing tablet and only a little more expensive that the Inspiroy H1161. Once again XP-Pen is one of the more popular drawing tablet suppliers.
Compared to the H1161 it only has 8 Press buttons for functionality, however what is really cool is it has a slider ring that you can turn and touch giving you 2 sliders to play with. You could map one to brush size the other to zooming for instance.
Once again the pen has 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity, android compatibility and with a large drawing space.
One cool feature with the drawing space is the fact that the buttons and the wheel is on a raised part of the tablet. A problem I personally come across is tracking off the drawing tablet with my pen while focusing on the screen. With this its pretty obvious you have hit the end of the drawing area.
I really like the XP-Pen Deco Pro and would even consider using it over my Wacom.
Conclusion
I hope you have found this article helpful in your hunt for the perfect tablet for Blender. It really is a useful tool which I would highly recommend getting. Its one of the best investments you can make. Not to mention they are fun to use.