So:

What's a good, inexpensive entry-level drawing tablet? I want to become a digital artist. You can't do that with paper and ink, now can you? I have a budget of about 100 CAD. Give or take 10 bucks.

2) What are some other resources? I know the about Drawabox, and I am currently doing the curriculum. But, in the (abridged and most likely incorrect) words of its creator, it's more about getting the basics down. The basics won't do for the obscene degeneracy against whatever deity you believe in that I want to draw.

That's all.

donadona said:
What's a good, inexpensive entry-level drawing tablet? I want to become a digital artist. You can't do that with paper and ink, now can you? I have a budget of about 100 CAD. Give or take 10 bucks.

XP-Pen is getting to be the budget competitor brand for Wacom, I've seen a few other artists swear by them in general, and I myself use their Deco 01 V2. It doesn't have a built-in eraser feature, but if you're not already used to that, that's probably less of a downer. Was around $60~ USD when I got mine.

For drawing resources I suggest looking up The Drawing Database on YouTube. It’s a literal art teacher posting drawing lectures on YouTube, very helpful and informative. It goes from beginner level to advance level, and I think he explains things very well.

sloppyheadwind said:
XP-Pen is getting to be the budget competitor brand for Wacom, I've seen a few other artists swear by them in general, and I myself use their Deco 01 V2. It doesn't have a built-in eraser feature, but if you're not already used to that, that's probably less of a downer. Was around $60~ USD when I got mine.

I've bought and tried out the very same tablet you've recommended, yet it feels unfathomably sluggish? I feel like I have to slam my pen to make a mark, my pen is never where I want it to be, and it crawls across my screen at a snail's pace. The only one of these problems I've "fixed" was the pressure issue, yet now I can't make thinner or thicker lines on command. So I've just created another problem.

Given that you seem to have some experience with this, I hope you can help me out.

donadona said:
...yet now I can't make thinner or thicker lines on command...

What art program are you using?

donadona said:
I've bought and tried out the very same tablet you've recommended, yet it feels unfathomably sluggish? I feel like I have to slam my pen to make a mark, my pen is never where I want it to be, and it crawls across my screen at a snail's pace. The only one of these problems I've "fixed" was the pressure issue, yet now I can't make thinner or thicker lines on command. So I've just created another problem.

Given that you seem to have some experience with this, I hope you can help me out.

Can't say I've ever had any issue exactly like that, but...

-First thing would be making sure you've got your tablet drivers and software up-to-date. (Over here, if you've got that same model: https://www.xp-pen.com/download/deco-01-v2.html )
-Have you checked the tablet's settings to make sure your tablet's drawing area is properly mapped to whatever display setup you have? I recall mine took a bit of finagling since I have a dual-monitor setup, and only wanted it active on my primary.
-Does whatever program you're using possibly have some sort of stability/jitter/line-correction feature on by default that might be causing your issues? I remember the first time I tried one of these out, it slowed my computer down enough that penstrokes had notable delay.
-If you're on Windows, maybe turning Windows Ink off or on depending on what it's currently set on might help - it's...a pain in the ass thing and half the time issues are solved by having it on, the other by having it off, depends on how the tech gods feel that day
-Real potentially niche one, but if it's Clip Studio Paint you're using and your system might be lower-end, if you're using the dynamic brush cursors (i.e. the ones that change size visibly with changing the brush size) that can eat up resources too. There's a setting to use a smaller pinpoint cursor that makes things run smoother.

emionix said:
What art program are you using?

Krita. I just turned off the "Pressure" setting internally. Mostly because I gradually increase line pressure, and I didn't like the lines it made.

sloppyheadwind said:
Can't say I've ever had any issue exactly like that, but...

-First thing would be making sure you've got your tablet drivers and software up-to-date. (Over here, if you've got that same model: https://www.xp-pen.com/download/deco-01-v2.html )
-Have you checked the tablet's settings to make sure your tablet's drawing area is properly mapped to whatever display setup you have? I recall mine took a bit of finagling since I have a dual-monitor setup, and only wanted it active on my primary.
-Does whatever program you're using possibly have some sort of stability/jitter/line-correction feature on by default that might be causing your issues? I remember the first time I tried one of these out, it slowed my computer down enough that penstrokes had notable delay.
-If you're on Windows, maybe turning Windows Ink off or on depending on what it's currently set on might help - it's...a pain in the ass thing and half the time issues are solved by having it on, the other by having it off, depends on how the tech gods feel that day
-Real potentially niche one, but if it's Clip Studio Paint you're using and your system might be lower-end, if you're using the dynamic brush cursors (i.e. the ones that change size visibly with changing the brush size) that can eat up resources too. There's a setting to use a smaller pinpoint cursor that makes things run smoother.

-I have it set so that my entire screen is the work area. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
-I have no clue. As aforementioned, I use Krita because I vaguely remember someone saying something good about it.
-It was turned on before, now I've turned it off.

donadona said:

Krita. I just turned off the "Pressure" setting internally. Mostly because I gradually increase line pressure, and I didn't like the lines it made.

-I have it set so that my entire screen is the work area. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
-I have no clue. As aforementioned, I use Krita because I vaguely remember someone saying something good about it.
-It was turned on before, now I've turned it off.

If it's a single monitor, then the whole screen is fine.
Krita looks like it has stabilization options in the Tools/Options from a cursory search, but I'm not clear as to what it defaults to since I don't use it - possibly something to look into if what you've done already hasn't sorted the issue out.

I'd recommend giving the piece of software called "Lazy Nezumi Pro" a try. It's a one-size-fits-all tablet pen smoothing app. Currently it's Windows-only, though. But, aside from the pen movement lazying up/stabilizing functions, it also has a "pressure smoothing" feature and it is a life saver when used along with Krita, imo. You can set up your own pen pressure curve too, if you want.

sloppyheadwind said:
If it's a single monitor, then the whole screen is fine.
Krita looks like it has stabilization options in the Tools/Options from a cursory search, but I'm not clear as to what it defaults to since I don't use it - possibly something to look into if what you've done already hasn't sorted the issue out.

It does, it has several stabilization options including a SAI-like weighted stabilizer. Also some Krita brushes have their own pressure curve. Another word of advice about Krita: Krita has extra "second party" brushes made by people who work on Krita but aren't bundled by default. Ramon Miranda's brushes are very good (I especially like his SK2 brushes), you can get them here, they're the .bundle files: https://files.kde.org/krita/extras/ Note that you don't probably need the "WATERC" ones as they already come with Krita now IIRC.