Should I get an iPad 8 for drawing on?

[johnnT]

#1. I'm getting my 10 year old a laptop for school at home. Which could be around $300 or $400.

#2. I use Affinity Designer and stuff on desktop but I always wanted to use a tablet to really draw with my hand instead. Could Be $1000.

#3. I have an old iPad 4 which won't run affinity designer on it.

Theory:  Since my daughter needs it just for school stuff like google docs and zoom, and I have it in my head that people like to use an iPad to draw on.

I was thinking that I could just buy a new iPad. With the keyboard and pencil would be about $500.

What do people think about this?

 

 

[Carson]

I recently went from an iPad 6 to an iPad Air 4 and am blown away by the increased performance. The iPad Air 4 doubles the RAM and the A14 Bionic processor chip is amazing. I got the Apple Pencil 2 with it and am super pleased. Running Affinity Photo is a very stable and smooth experience. 

Haven’t used a desktop or laptop for 6 years now and don’t miss them one bit.

[Carson]

I should add I use Affinity Photo for drawing at times, like today. The pencil strokes do not lag and it is a great drawing experience. 

[johnnT]

Actually that's just what I ended up getting. iPad Air 4 sky blue. And a 2nd Gen pencil. Now if I could find a good stand. I'm thinking of just making one.

Affinity Designed look like it might take a little getting used to on iPad. But I really want to do line work.

I haven't tried affinity photo yet but I do use procreate.

Thankyou

 

[Carson]

You are really going to like your new setup. That is fantastic. Affinity makes huge apps and the power of your setup will handle them beautifully. 

I found Affinity Photo to have a bit of a learning curve too. I used to use Photoshop so that really helped but it did take me about 7 weeks to find all the features and methods for what I do. I would suspect Affinity Designer to have a learning curve too. 

I’m a serious photographer so Photo is something I use for that but I did find two methods to draw and paint in Affinity Photo so I figured Procreate would not be of benefit in my case. 

[skmwrp]

I got a discounted iPad Air 3 myself because I already had a Gen 1 Apple Pencil for my iPad Mini, so I saved myself the extra cost. AD works just fine on it for me.

In terms of stands, I've been through a few and find most either 1) place the bottom edge too close to the table surface, or 2) have too tall of an edge along the bottom that starts cutting across the side of my hand. I use a two-finger glove like the type you find on Amazon along with the leg part of an old sock which I cut and folded over and stitched to wear around my wrist because I wear a medical ID bracelet that I don't want to scratch whatever screen I'm working on. What I ended up with is an old laptop stand that puts the iPad up off the tabletop, meaning I don't have to slouch, and has a very shallow bottom edge. This, I attached to a bar stool which lets me wrap my legs around the thing and really get over the drawing surface, causing less back & neck pain than when I try the same on a desk where I can't get my chair close enough. I ink about 15-20 panels a day this way.

In terms of drawability, after more than a month of testing, I found that Procreate feels more natural when using raster/pixel. The lines from the #4 pencil just look more natural than either Affinity Designer in pixel mode or Affinity Photo. But I have since switched to drawing/inking using vector brushes and with that I use Designer, because I haven't been able to find any other app that does so much, has all of the features I need, and doesn't require a subscription. And between using a drawing tablet with a built-in display versus using AD on the iPad, I use the iPad pretty exclusively now because of the ability to rotate and zoom with my fingers. (The drawing tablet drives me nuts now when I try using it.) And two-finger tap to Undo. (Though three-finger tap to Redo is near impossible because I have the two-finger glove and hold a pencil.) My other hand is on a bluetooth numeric keyboard which I've set for the most common actions I use.

Really wish Serif would fix the usability issues with their apps, though. Can't delete with delete key, Deselect key command still doesn't work which causes me all kinds of issues, and keyboard shortcuts missing for such obvious things as increase/decrease bush size, undo/redo, etc.

Best money you could spend now is to get a paper-like matte finish for the iPad. (Doesn't necessarily have to be the Paper-like brand.) You'll wear down pencil tips a bit faster, but it is much, much better to draw on.

[Carson]

21 hours ago, skmwrp said:

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In terms of drawability, after more than a month of testing, I found that Procreate feels more natural when using raster/pixel. The lines from the #4 pencil just look more natural than either Affinity Designer in pixel mode or Affinity Photo.

You all talked me into it. I got Procreate to draw with. Not bad at all and has a fairly simple interface. Plenty of good brush tools. Love the color wheel disc, classic, harmony, value and pallets.

I use Affinity Photo for photo work. It has a plethora of adjustments and tools. However it still does not recognize a ProRaw file properly. It initially renders either too bright or too dark. This is the future so it would be good to see an update specifically for this.