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[Noel Berry]

I voted yes, but my second option would have obviously been Cactus.

Yeah, I'd love a Cintiq. Right now I have a Intuos, and it's still pretty great for all my digital paintings/arts.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I have a Wacom Graphire 4, which I got over 4 years ago and I still used it! It cost me £130 at the time. My recommendation would be to get something A5-sized rather than A6-sized (which a lot of the cheaper ones tend to be). My tablet is roughly the size of my laptop screen and that feels pretty natural.

[goshki]

I have some A4-sized 3-year-old Pentagram and it comes quite handy when I need some quick sketches for the prototype or sth (although I'm not that fluid in hand-drawing and the A4-size seems a bit too much). Sometimes the pen reaction gets flaky but it was a good buy after all.

[Toeofdoom]

Wacom cactus - curved surface for unique artistic style, innovative technology detects bloodstains allowing for even greater variation.

Regular tablets (not screens) are good, but they take some practice. If you do decide to get one (hmmm 32 to 1), you'll have to practice a fair bit with it as there's a learning curve. But when you consider the alternative is mouse drawing or scanning, it's absolutely worth it.

I have the smallest Wacom intuos3 - works fine for me maybe because I use ridiculously high mouse sensitivity and I'm used to making small movements. You almost certainly don't need an intuos, though, the detail on lower end tablets is often perfectly fine.

Finally, I had to adjust how it reacted to pressure before I really liked how it worked. The default settings made it hard to get enough variation to reliably draw thin lines (by pressing lightly) so you may want to mess with that.

[Pineapple]

So I'm definitely getting a tablet, but I'm trying to figure out which one.

There's the Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch with about a 5x3" pen area for $100.
There's a Pen & Touch with about a 8x6" area for $200.
The smallest Intuos is $250.

I'm trying to decide between the three - and also wondering if there's a Bamboo that's sized somewhere between $100 and $200.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I'd go for the 8x6" one. 5x3" sounds pretty small to me, and you want to be able to draw like you would in a physical sketchbook imho.

Does the Bamboo have tilt sensitivity on the pen? My Wacom Graphire4 doesn't, and it meant I couldn't use all the features of Painter (i.e. tilt-sensitive brush directions). I don't know how much of an issue that would be for you, as I don't know what software you plan to use and what features it has for tablets. But it's worth thinking about (I've not found it much of a bother personally, but I mostly use Paint Shop Pro).

[Jrsquee]

No, you shouldn't get a tablet unless you know you need/want one. I think it's much more important to learn to draw and paint with physical materials before you jump to digital work.

Though: if you really want one, or you already know what you're doing as an artist, go for it. Wacom is the way to go. The intuos are real nice, but heckspensive for sure. Bamboo is good AND cheap, but they're tiiiny.

[Subtraka]

The disconnect will make you really sad but hunker through it and you'll master it.  If you can, use your tablet for everything, even browsing.

[Toom]

I actually found my (traditional media) life-drawing skills improved immensely once I got used to using a tablet; I'm attributing this to getting accustomed to not looking at my hand so much and paying more attention to the actual drawing, if that makes sense.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

I think it's much more important to learn to draw and paint with physical materials before you jump to digital work.

I disagree with this. I don't see a "jump" between digital and physical work. To me they're just two different types of medium. Would you say it's important to learn to use pencils before you can use pens, or to draw before you can sculpt or do collage? An understanding of a wide range of media is important, and you'll grow better as an artist with a more diverse eye.

There's no hierarchy of materials, or a difficulty list from easy to hard. There's just different kinds of materials with different properties which can help you learn different lessons as an artist. Digital drawing is a fun medium which offers up some really sweet opportunities for experimentation