I’m not new to drawing and art, but I have been out of practice for many years, and I have never in my life used a digital art tablet. I feel like I’m starting from square one, because I am. I’ve had it for a few days now, and I’m dedicated to doing at least 6 minutes a day for a hundred (or more, I’m old, and thus a slow learner.) days, and I know for the first excruciatingly long while I will be strictly producing absolute trash and am not afraid of that. I’ve played guitar consistently since I was 14, so I’m very familiar with the seemingly stagnant pace that is required for learning and progress, but I really want to learn and progress. That’s the whole reason I got the tablet. I’ve got an itch.
So, I’m interacting with the second circle of learning and reaching out to those who know what I do not, which is everything from anyone who is familiar with using a screen and pen tablet.
What advice would you offer to someone just starting out?
Also, does anyone use a Kamvas 13 gen 3 with CachyOS? I can’t find any AUR drivers that work right. The default OS drawing tablet settings work for the most part, but I can’t use the wheely bits for anything. Every Huion AUR driver fucks up the tablet area and I can’t use the workspace calibration.
9 Comments
whatsgoingdom@rollenspiel.forum · 8 pts · 4d
Since you're in Linux, Krita is probably what you'll want to use a your drawing software. Krita has a few different views of the workspace, test them and adapt them to your needs (I use big paint 2 layout). Put the "rotate canvas" shortcut on one of the tablets keys, it'll make life so much easier. And a mental thing: you don't necessarily have to reproduce your traditional drawing style in your digital drawings.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
I’ve been using Krita, I checked out a few others, but I really like Krita. I can’t believe it’s free. I think I’m going to setup a mini PC with Ubuntu, since Huion has an official driver for that distro, then I can use the wheels to rotate, zoom, and change brush sizes. It’s a very well setup tablet for shortcuts, if you have an OS that supports it.
I think I’m a bit of a ways away from knowing what my style even is, so I’m not too worried about that as a roadblock. So far I’m just drawing lines and shapes to get some precision and muscle memory up and running and getting a feel for drawing on a screen. Circles are fucking hard.
insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 4d
Was the AUR driver you tried digimend DKMS? Not sure how it is these days. It's been a while for me so I can't say how it is now, though I do remember having somewhat similar issues. IIRC changing buttons was done via evdev (?) rules, though possibly some software might allow rebinding (if not directly in used software like Krita?). With my model, I only had the 2 pen buttons to worry about though.
Despite issues, I think digimend probably would've been usable for me at-the-time if I had more motivation for drawing. Some of it is just not my thing*, some is not having a good setup, some is I didn't want to wear out the screen and could not find a cheap screen protector that didn't ruin the image w/o also being expensive (I used a cheap shower curtain, but that wasn't perfect for viewing or drawing either but it does keep the dust off).
* I guess technically I could still use it for vertex painting or sculpting, though it's not like those are hard to do with the mouse. Pressure is the benefit, I guess. Had the thought many times to get pressure from my Steam Controller alongside mouse (or the tablet if it'd work), but never found a way to do that.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
I’ve tried every available driver for arch I could find, none of them run properly with CachyOS. I can get the driver to open and assign buttons, but it borks the area of the screen that is assigned for the tablet workspace and doesn’t give me the option to calibrate the screen. Everything other than the scroll wheels works fine with the stock OS, but I really want to be able to use the wheels. Huion has an official Ubuntu driver, so I’m just going to set up a mini pc I have and just use that as a dedicated work station for it.
Mind if I ask what tablet you have?
insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 4d
Huion GT-191 (not V2). Older, it's been a while though I don't recall having issues with screen area beyond maybe some accuracy that could be better. I do remember that the pen registers in the margins but I believe that's intended for drawing on edges and allowing pen buttons too.
I could do something similar to you, I currently am just using the tablet as a monitor testing Void on an old computer and installed Krita but haven't even plugged in the USB. Kind of unsure as well for reasons I listed, it would probably make more sense for me to practice drawing with pen-and-paper first and maybe eventually using the drawing monitor without a screen protector.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Not sure what the screen durabiloty is like on that model, I know the gen 3 got a newer setup with the nice paper feel matte finish, but I wouldn’t worry too much about screen damage from looking at reviews of the 191, most people say it holds up great, I imagine felt tip nibs would work better than a screen protector if you’re worried about scratches and would be just an overall smoother user experience compared to an extra screen layer. Looks like a solid tablet with a lot of workspace.
insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 4d
Looking into it, it seems like the felt tips actually have more friction (I imagine they squish more, thus more contact area, and probably create wear by dragging dust).
I was however worried about long-term wear (like creating a dip in the screen), particularly if I were using it for repetitive drawing practice (hence why I mentioned paper practice instead). I've had it so long unused though it probably doesn't matter, I should probably just use it. The nibs will probably wear out much more than the screen, and I will probably just need to adjust the pressure stay on the lighter side.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Wear and tear is an inevitability. If it gets to that point it just means it’s doing its job for you. I plan on putting mine through every level of hell it can go through. Give it the end it deserves.
insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 4d
So, I just tried it and all seems to be working with Void (XFCE+musl). Accuracy still off (and not sure if I can fix that) but pressure does work. Seems usable, especially with larger brushes where an offset won't really be noticable. EDIT: And obviously, this doesn't address the issues you're having
Low pressure works well, too.
I mean I definitely am no stranger to running things into the ground, but I'm still using a low-end GPU from 2016. If I do this I want something to show for it, not just 200K+ ovals/lines/boxes etc. Because I will likely not be buying another. TBH if I could trade to someone who could better use it and still get some value I probably would've done that by now.
Pixels are not really my thing these days. Besides the stuff I mentioned, I don't know what else I'd do unless I try to make some sort of painted vector animation (Flash-like, such as via Wick Editor) but again this is something that might work with a mouse depending on design (some styles may work better with a pen, though).
EDIT: Trying this, pressure doesn't seem to be working at all in the browser (WebGL/WASM applications). It seems like it absolutely should, though.