Below are the list of the products and software I would personally recommend whether you’re new to CG or are just investigating your next upgrade.
Drawing Tablets
Many beginners and professionals alike utilize drawing tablets. They are an affordable and extremely useful tool to have. Both of my recommendations below are Wacom and for one reason. They are just that good!! The years of experience in the market assures you are going to get a well thought out quality tablet at a reasonable price. If you are interested in a guide to buying a tablet I recommend you check out this article I wrote.
Beginner
There are three main reasons for this choice. The first being its a medium sized tablet so you have plenty of room to work. It has a ample amount of buttons to setup short keys. Finally it is Cheap!! Best value for money in my opinion.
Professional
This is the tablet I personally use. Medium is just the right size as I personally find large to big. They have Bluetooth connectivity so no cords needed with plenty of programmable keys. With this option you can also utilise Wacom’s additional offerings such as the Express Key Remote if you want more buttons. Or the Pro Pen 3d which has a different configuration on the Pen to give you 3 buttons instead of the 2 (Love this).
Display Tablets
Display Tablets are a more immersive type of tablet where you can directly draw on the screen with all the functionality of a drawing tablet. This does however come at a price and for many years Wacom have been the main player. Thankfully in recent years companies such as Huion an XP-Pen have provided alternatives at much more reasonable prices.
For 3d purposes I wouldn’t recommend a beginner level monitor as I personally don’t believe there is one suitable. I would not recommend anything smaller than 20″ as they are not practical for 3d in my opinion.
Intermediate
When looking for a display tablet for 3d modelling I look for two things. Size as most 3d programs have a lot of buttons and windows that take up a lot of screen. The second is plenty of buttons. Quite often I rely heavily on buttons to speed up my workflow. Fortunately all three of these tablets tick these boxes. If I were to choose one the Hioun Kamvas 22 Plus is by far the best value for money.
Professional
The hands down best Display Tablets on the market are the Wacom Cintiq Pros. The Cintiq Pro 24” is the perfect size with a 4k resolution and 98% Adobe color accuracy. It has all the quality you would come to expect from Wacom products. If you can afford the price tag and are serious about your CG there is no better option in my opinion. No competitor can come close to the quality of these displays.
Software
The following is my personal choice of programs for 3d however there are count other options on the market.
Blender
For anyone starting out in CG I would recommend Blender it is a all round piece of software perfect for beginners and professionals. Best of all it’s free!! For more into on this please check out this article I wrote.
Zbrush
I personally love Zbrush if you are serious about 3d modelling there really isn’t a better choice. It is fantastic at sculpting but has the ability to also model in traditional ways. Please check out this article I wrote for more information.
Substance Painter
If you are looking to texture your models you couldn’t find a better option than Substance Painter. It procedural nature really helps speed up the texturing process and gives great results. For more information on this please check out this article.
Workstation Components
Speccing a workstation is very tricky as many factors need to be considered. Are you GPU or CPU Rendering, what programs are you using and what type of CG are you doing. Instead I would recommend focusing on the CPU and GPU and build your system around this.
Best CPU
AMD Ryzen Thread Ripper 3960x 24 Cores
As a beginner you do not require an expensive CPU. With most Quad Core CPU’s you wont experience too much trouble. In general nowadays they can handle the basic requirements of CG. However when it comes to more complex rendering and simulations there is certainly value in having a good CPU if you are using a program that utilizes CPU Rendering.
AMD are by far leading in CPU market at the moment. The Ryzen 9 3950x is exceptional value when compared to its performance and can easily handle much of what you throw at it.
If you have a little more extra cash the Ryzen Thread Ripper 3960x is an amazing CPU especially for CPU intensive tasks.
Best GPU
Most Graphics cards can handle basic CG tasks and as a Beginner you certainly are not limited if you do not have a top of the line card. Once you are serious about your CG The price is certainly justified it can save you a lot of time due to improved workflow and render speeds.
The GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is a solid card and I would recommend if you are looking for an upgrade that wont break the bank.
The GeForce RTX 2080 Super is somewhat more expensive however it is a considerable step up in both price and performance. If you are serious about CG this is definitely a card to consider.