Whether you’re drawing with a mouse or a stylus, on a pen display or not, it’s going to take getting used to. It’s a very unnatural feeling in the beginning, so don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t get it right away.

• When I was transitioning from traditional art to digital art, it helped me to sketch my drawings on paper and then scan it (or you can take a photo) and line it digitally. That helped me develop the feel for drawing digitally and helped me better learn the program I was using. Eventually I got to the point where I could do it all right in the program from start to finish.

• Be mindful of colors. Digital displays are capable of more colors than you may be used to in traditional mediums, and in my early digital works all my colors were way too saturated and bright and very unpleasant to look at. That doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t use highly saturated colors, but if every color in your piece is maxed at 100% saturation and 100% brightness, it might be interpreted as amateur (this is not a bash on anyone, this is something I experienced in my own art journey).

^ But take that with a grain of salt. Art should be about making what you want and what you like, so if you like full saturation+brightness then crank it up!

• SIZE & RESOLUTION SETTINGS! Early on I had no idea why some of my drawings were so pixelated and fuzzy and it’s because I didn’t have a large enough canvas with high enough resolution (PPI or DPI). Unless you’re working with vector files, you can’t make a (raster) image larger without losing quality, so start with the correct size canvas so you don’t make the mistakes I did. Nowadays I always use 300 DPI for my illustrations.

• Accept the fact that there is not ‘one perfect brush’ or 'one perfect program’ that will magically make you 'good’ at digital art. Just like with traditional media, it’s more about how the artist uses the tool than the tool itself. So feel empowered to experiment with different brushes and fonts and assets, but don’t expect them to do the work for you.

• Watch/read tutorials! There are thousands of tutorials online, so use them! Even though I’ve been drawing for 32 years and drawing digitally for around 18 years, I still regularly look up tutorials to help me hone my skills and learn new techniques.

I hope that helps! Good luck on your art journey!

Welcome! I hope you aren’t too discouraged by what equipment you do or don’t have. I spent the first several years of my digital art exploration by drawing with a mouse! Some things make your life a bit easier than others, but in the end they’re all just tools. What matters is your talent and perseverance!

Nowadays I do all my digital drawing on Procreate for the iPad and I absolutely love it. I used to use Photoshop on the computer and used a Wacom Intuos tablet (where you’re looking at your computer monitor instead of down at your hand) but I’m much happier with my drawing setup now.

There are tons of other drawing apps and programs out there, though. One I used to use in a pinch was pixlr.com/editor

I haven’t used it in years so I can’t speak to how it is now, but back then I appreciated that it was free and I could use it in any browser and it was very similar in layout to Photoshop.

Good luck on your digital art journey! And thank you for the bday wishes and the fic suggestions, those two are some of my favorites!