Hands On Review of the the XP-Pen Deco Fun: XP-Pen's Most Affordable Drawing Tablet

 

With a graphic tablet you can draw on your computer! Your screen will turn into your canvas.

If you do any type a graphic design, digital design, digital art and marketing graphics there will come a time that you will need some new equipment to take your skills and abilities up a notch. I highly recommend XP-Pen products.

Graphics Drawing Tablets for PC have come a long way in recent years. Gone are the days where the only game in town was a Wacom Intuos. Now, there are options to suit all budgets – from powerful, feature-packed pen displays with high-resolution touchscreens, to mid-range and cheap drawing tablets that balance price with power.

XP-Pen was founded in 2005 and in my opinion, whether you're interested in painting, drawing or photograph retouching, it is the company you should consider when looking for a graphics tablet.

Recently, XP-Pen introduced a new addition to its Deco family: the XP-Pen Deco Fun with XS, S, L three sizes and four different colors. Since I've been a XP-Pen tablet user for many years, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

The first thing I noticed was that XP-Pen now offers a bewildering selection of entry level and mid range tablets.

These “entry level” tablets are the XP-Pen Deco Fun Series. Prices vary because their sizes vary by tablet. They feature a smooth drawing surface and Android compatible with Android, Chrome OS.

For my tests, I bought the whole models of the Deco Fun range.

Unboxing the XP-Pen Deco Fun

When I first got it I was really excited because I'd seen on Youtube all the unboxings and the interior of the box is really nice!

It's a beautiful box for storing your tablet in! Underneath the tablet is a compartment for the cable, that connects it to your laptop, and the manual.

Once you buy it, you'll get:

– The actual Tablet .
– The pen with buttons .
– 1 Pen Clipper and 10 extra nibs
– A booklet containing information on the tablet
– a USB connecting cable

Models

There are three versions of the Deco Fun. The price depends on the size you get too, obviously the bigger, the more expensive.

Extra Small ($29.99) — This tablet works well for those looking for an ultra-portable design as it measures 182.4 x 134.7 x 10.5mm.

Small ($39.99 ) — This size is my personal preference at 210.5 x 159.8 x 12.9mm. This matches my laptop well and easily fits in the bag for on-location work. Its large enough to use comfortably at a desk.

Large ($49.99) —This size works best for illustrators or those with a large work area. It measures 315 x 222.9 x 12.5mm.

Info & Features:

Here is some information and features about the tablet:

– The tablet has no buttons on the side to customize .
– There are additional 2 buttons on the pen.
– you can connect the tablet with its USB-C to USB-A type cable.
– The XP-Pen Deco Fun has also great pen pressure sensitivity.
– It has about 3 sizes and four colors ( Classic Black, Space Blue, Apple Green, Carmine Red ) to choose from.
– The small and Large Size tablets do have tilt feature.
– tablets supports Window , Mac , linux , Android connection and is widely compatible with Chromebook devices.

The Deco Fun is a simple entry into pen and tablet-based photo editing and illustration on a budget. While not as large as pricier options, and serving only as a map of the screen and not an actual screen, the Deco Fun' pressure sensitivity simplifies and speeds up many types of brush-based work.

Here's the official website for the XP-PEN Deco Fun: https://www.xp-pen.com/product/905.html

Install the Driver

Getting used to the tablet also involved getting the hang of how the pen worked on the tablet's surface. Much of this was made flexible via the tablet driver.

Once you have your tablet, you need to install all the drivers so it all works properly, which is a very simple task to do and shouldn't take up a lot of time.

Just Go to the XP-Pen official site drivers page. Click Download next to the latest driver that corresponds to your computer's operating system. Follow the prompts to finish the driver installation.

The Driver will help you to make relevant modifications on pen pressure to helping it feel akin to an actual pencil.

Tech Review

The tablet surface corresponds to your computer monitor; moving the pen over the tablet is analogous to moving your finger on a track pad — the movement is in your hands, but your eyes remain forward, looking at the monitor. While it sounds less intuitive than drawing directly on the screen, in practice it feels natural.

Made from smooth black plastic similar in feel to the Touchpad on a Laptop, the XP-Pen Deco Fun should look right at home on most desks. The majority of the tablet is taken up by that work surface, which measures 6.3 by 4 inches on the small model .

Four rubber pads underneath provide grip to carry the tablet steady while you're working. While constructed from plastic, the Deco Fun feels well-built for the price. I did find that with enough use, the pen will leave tiny scratch marks in the surface of the tablet .

Use the Deco Fun feels like the you tried to type without looking at your hands. Watching the screen instead of your hand while drawing feels strange, at first, but that odd feeling slowly fades the more you use the tablet system until it feels just as easy as typing.

In fact, employing a separate tablet and monitor — versus drawing directly on a screen — may even be a plus, as your hand doesn't physically block your view of your digital canvas.

My experience with it

Digital Painting experience

After installing the XP-Pen Deco Fun, I began exploring the digital medium landscape by trying out the paid software offer of Photoshop CC , alongside various other different free software including Medibang Paint, Gimp ,Krita, etc.

The bundled software ( ArtRage Lite ) doesn't do much for me . I think it's better to buy a Deco Fun and then buy whatever software you want to use with it.

The drawing surface is awesome: slick and smooth with no skips or lag. XP-Pen has always made quality tablets so there's no surprise that the pen responsiveness is spot-on.

The product does have its downfalls, The real difference between this tablet and its predecessors (and other tablets in XP-Pen's lineup) are the customizable hot buttons down the side of the tablet.

you can using it replaces drawing paper, pencils, watercolors, and just any other art tool you could think of!

A lot drawing programs are free, so once you get a tablet, you are essentially ready to go.

Since tablet stylus acts just like a pen, paintbrush, or whatever you want it to be, the table itself senses pressure. The biggest edge the Deco Fun has over a mouse is the pressure sensitivity.

More pressure creates smaller, darker strokes, while less pressure creates a line as large as the selected brush with more edge gradient. The pen doesn't mean you never need to choose a brush size, shape, or edge again, but the pressure sensitivity allows you to urge that maximum brush size or just a fraction of that selected brush with light pressure.

This makes it so that when you press hard, the lines made are thicker and darker, just like in real life. You can easily draw and color like you would on regular paper, except with more tools that you couldn't use in real life.

Use Deco Fun Graphic Tablet to Edit Photos

The main benefit to a tablet when photograph retouching is not as obvious as you might think. The precise movements compared to a mouse are nice but actually being able to change pressure on the pen is equally as useful, especially if you are dodging and burning.

While the Deco Fun is the most time-efficient when using the pressure sensitivity, the tablet-based editing feels more natural for a number of other uses. Using the pen to tap out blemishes with the healing tool was slightly faster than using the mouse, but it also felt more natural and, frankly, helped me in making a tedious task a bit more enjoyable.

If you think you'd be better/faster with a tablet, you should seriously consider getting one. Illustrators, cartoonists, animators, photographers doing retouching/editing by mouse would all benefit from a tablet.

I use the pen stylus even for video editing. Period point blank, holding a pen is going to be more accurate and efficient rhan holding a mouse for any computer task you can think of, at least for me.

Works with Chromebooks

This entry level tablet connects to any Chromebook with a USB cable and then you use the included stylus to draw like you'd normally draw! I've used a similar product from XP-Pen before to draw out math equations and it worked really well.

Supported on Chrome OS 88 and later, and Kernel version 4 and later(including 4.4, 4.14 and 4.19).

If your Chromebook has a touchscreen, the lag on some of those can make drawing accurately nearly impossible.

There are plenty of drawing apps for Chromebooks . You could use this for art (obviously) but also for students who want to show their math work.

This most likely has very little lag and the price makes it very affordable to boot.

Also when you buy the deco fun tablet you will get the three-month trail of Explain Everything whiteboard app （ just like Google Jamboard , Openboard and MS Whiteboard ） license .

Just download the app on your device to use to draw and open the board in a browser to screen share (or just send them the share link to view) and they can see what you draw.

I've been using the xp-pen with OneNote and PowwrPoint and it's worked great. You get used to coordinating the pen with the screen pretty quickly. it's great for online courses .

Support connect to your Android phone or tablet!

you need to download a driver to your pc and connect the tablet to update the tablet's firmware . after that its suppoused to work as intended.

It doesnt work with bluetooth it has to be connected using usb otg ( not come with , you have to buy one by yourself ) .

I connected my XP-Pen Deco Fun to my Samsung Galaxy (my phone came with a special adapter) and it technically works. However, you can't see where the pen is but you can still click and draw.

inixPint X this one support pen pressure and Sketchbook are my favorite apps . also with also medibang paint and adobe sketch ( idk why those 2 dont support pen pressure , But you can still draw. ).

Conclusion

The XP-Pen Deco Fun is the perfect tablet for anyone to start their journey in the digital medium. The added bonus of the free software, and relatively cheap prize makes it a perfect comic for the budget artist.

If you're looking at buying a Drawing Tablet, I definitely recommend getting a XP-Pen Deco Fun. For a beginner, it's perfect, not difficult to use and great results.

I'm thrilled with it and happily using it to sketch and paint in Photoshop.

If you do a lot of retouching, photography editing or even drawing, you should buy one, in my opinion. It's a solid product with minimal problems.

If you draw a lot, I would consider a XP-Pen Artist 12 Pro Drawing Tablet With Screen . I do not think you'd benefit from a screen with photograph retouching, so I do not recommend getting the more expensive model if you're only interested in photography.

7 Best Software for drawing illustrations and manga digitally

 

Hi guys! I write about art resources and tutorials and I think letting more people know about free art programs decreases the barrier to entry in the creative fields, so here is the full text from a round up on free art programs.

Let me know in the comments if you have a favorite you'd like me to add! Hope this helps somebody!

Paid software often is the industry standard and there are many amazing options there too.

Out of the plethora of free digital art software available, these are my favorite picks for free drawing software, including a few open source digital art software projects.

What Is the best digital art program to start with?

The question everyone seems to have an opinion about, but instead of opinions let me give you one well known fact, digital drawing software tends to be super complicated : open up Adobe Photoshop for the first time and you will have no idea what to do because there are just too many choices, most of which are btw completely irrelevant to a digital artist, especially a beginner.

Krita, a commonly recommended starter software that I myself in fact started with, has the same issue and corel painter is certainly no easier. Medibang and firealpaca are also quite bloated with features but not as far gone as these others I've named.

I've tried almost all digital painting software I could find on the internet, so with that said here are my winners for best beginner software, and my logic for recommending them.

I can name some really-well known ones and I'll say my own personal opinion about them.

7 Best Digital Painting and Drawing Software

1. Paint Tool SAI

Works on: Windows Only | Price: $50~

Personal opinion: The most beginner friendly general purpose painting software with a bite stronger than it's bark. Also possibly the most lightweight painting software .

I know it's not exactly dirt cheap (pretty cheap though) but trust me when I say that for a beginner this is a worthwhile investment if only to streamline your learning experience and ease you more gently into the digital drawing experience.

The reason I recommend this as the ultimate software for a beginner digital artist is simplicity, this program is very much straight to the point and doesn't have any features or weird unexpected buttons you won't know what to do with.

the entire program is centered around painting and only painting and doesn't allow itself to get bogged down or overcomplicated by including features that not everyone would use, it has a clean and simple, intuitive user interface, making it easier to learn than all other digital painting software of comparable capabilities.

there are many great artists who use this software professionally so don't be fooled into thinking it's only purpose is to be your training wheels, you could end up loving it for decades .

It also helps that it's cheap with a 1 time payment of $50~ as opposed to say $10 a month for photoshop which would fast accumulate to $120 per year.

This program has a simple, to the point user interface, simple yet solid and fast brush engine, it is tried and tested, has been around and loved by it's users for years, it is lightweight and feature complete, it is the perfect starting point for any first time digital artist.

2. MyPaint

Works on: Linux, Windows and MacOS | Price: Free And Open Source!

Probably the most grounded in simplicity from the first line of code to the last, this program was made with beginners in mind and many advanced artists swear by it as their go to tool for quick painting and sketching purposes.

MyPaint is a bit of an underdog, I've seen a handful of people swear by it and at a glance after you first open it it would seem like it's simpler than the above two... But it has a major flaw, the default UI setup is ridiculous, so unless you have the patience and know-how (e.g. to know that this is what you want) to set it up something like this yourself manually, this is one of those programs where you will just open it up and have no freakin idea what to do not because there are too many buttons, but because there are too few .

I also noticed that the download links can be a bit wonky and you have to manually select the 32 bit or 64 bit installers when you download (if in doubt, select the 64 bit/w64 ).

This program is perhaps the only one that was effectively designed in such a way that you can just open it up and paint, no hassle, from the moment you open it you have an infinite size canvas to work with, in other words you don't have to worry about setting your canvas size, it's already "as big as you need" without getting into any technical details :la: and I find that neat.

It's really not that hard to set up, in fact I'll walk you through it.

Open the "Window" menu at the titlebar

Now click the following in this order:
Preview Panel
Color Adjusters -> HSV Square
Layers Panel
Brush Groups -> Classic
Tool Options Panel
If everything goes well, the first 3 should be on the right side of the screen and the last 2 on the left side and now you have a perfectly solid UI. If however something went wrong, you can drag these panels around by clicking and holding the icon in their upper-left corner .

After setting this up and playing with the classic brushes you can start exploring more of the program and set up things like the "Favorites" Brush Group, creating your own Brush Groups and even creating your own brushes : just make sure you always select the "Freehand Drawing Tool" (aka brush tool) in the top menu bar.

Also be careful not to go too crazy on the zooming out, you'll end up with a humongous file hehe Sweating a little... (takes forever to save, and brushes will get slower if you make them too huge; note that this issue affects all software, not just MyPaint ).

3. Medibang Paint or FireAlpaca

Works on: Linux, Windows and MacOS | Price: Free

While the UI design could be better, these programs are very well rounded general purpose drawing software with a very to-the-point feature kit and a hard to beat $0 pricetag!

MediBang is a relatively recent addition to the free software list, it started out originally as a program called OpenCanvas, MediBang as well as FireAlpaca and Jump Paint (a medibang derivative) are all effectively just 'lite' versions of OpenCanvas.

FireAlpaca has animation support while medibang has some manga-creation features instead and Jump Paint is a customized version of medibang tailored towards mangaka and also has lessons on how to create pro quality manga by JUMP's editorial department : so if that's something you want then yeah, maybe go for Jump Paint instead of MediBang, that's bound to be some valuable data for you .

MediBang and FireAlpaca don't do as good a job of being simple and to the point as my former 3 mentions, I'd say their UIs are rather unintuitive in comparison, but it's certainly simpler than most other alternatives, so there's that.

MediBang or FireAlpaca would be a good starting points but their learning curve is steeper than of the above programs , and not due to how many more features it has but more due to poor design choices.

however on an Android Tablet PC MediBang may possibly be the best choice you have, the only other option I know of would be (Corel) Painter Mobile (which is free but you need to pay a little for their brush engines, which is kinda retarded since it's the main part of the program but it was pretty cheap so meh, I really really liked painter mobile's sketch brush engine ) but MediBang is still a very sold program.

So is FireAlpaca and I assume so is Jump Paint but the full experience is only available in OpenCanvas .what a confusing series of programs.

4. Krita

Works on: Linux, Windows and MacOS | Price: Free And Open Source!

The current king of free painting software, it is by far the most feature rich free painting software, it's open source, and does it's best to compete not only with photoshop but also corel painter, it sadly does not fully beat either of them at their own game, but instead it beats both by offering features that corel painter doesn't and offering brush engines of superior versatility to Photoshop's.

This program has room to grow and there's no telling if in a few years it'll be the next digital painting behemoth, or the next digital painting vaporware. It could afford to be more noob friendly though and lacks the capabilities to do clean rendering .

I used Krita because as a painter I preferred it over photoshop : but ultimately found some problems in how it handles soft brushes and blending with them .

Krita will again be a solid alternative for me, and even without this, for rough painted looking styles Krita is rock solid, and no program besides photoshop that I'm aware of can beat Krita in post processing and image manipulation tasks. so Krita is undoubtedly one of Photoshop's by far strongest competitors.

if none of the previously mentioned programs sounded like a very good fit, either you need to look at vector illustration software or this is probably the right fit for you. It has many cool brush engines but overall I'd say nothing that really stands out (it's sketching brush engine is sublime tho) compared to formerly mentioned software.

Krita also has animation support and some minimal vector drawing capabilities as well as some manga/comic illustration features, besides photoshop it's basically the only "all-in-one" package software, and... it's free!

It's loaded to the brim with awesome features but it is definitely not noob friendly, so unless you have a background in Photoshop or GIMP, there is going to be some degree of learning curve here.

5. Adobe Photoshop CC

Price: $10+ per month/$120+ per year | Works on: Windows and MacOS

There are two quite heavily disputed champions leading the industry of digital artwork, those are Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop. In my personal opinion the only one of the two that deserves to be called a champion of anything when it comes to digital art is Corel Painter, but nontheless I can't argue with the general consensus too much about photoshop's less disputed dominance over the market.

The best image editor, photomanipulation and post-processing software but with lackluster painting capabilities for it's price (it's brush engine while pretty nicely optimized, has too few customization options in my opinion).

Probably the most widely recommended digital painting capable software on the entire internet, used by professionals all around the world, personally I preferred Krita as while Photoshop's brush engine may be better optimized it's also less feature rich.

But photoshop has reigned supreme since the 90s for a reason, even if that reason may only be because it reigned supreme in the 90s, it is however the completely undisputed champion of photo editing and manipulation . and many photomanipulation and post-processing techniques that are often more easily achievable in photoshop than rivaling applications are indeed potentially useful for many of the more advanced digital artists, which is why a lot of artists end up working with 2 programs, i.e. their favorite painting application (commonly this is corel painter) and after finishing up there they copy the image to photoshop for post-processing and final refinement .

but there's no denying that this program is quite expensive in the long run. However there's also no denying that this is the most tried and tested program and most professionals by far use it, so you can't go wrong with this program as an intermediate-advanced digital artist, that's for sure.

6. Corel Painter

Price: Over $430 + $200 yearly for updates (Has Free Trial)| Works on: Windows and MacOS

The most expensive digital painting program there is, also quite possibly the best program ever for digital painting, with multiple super advanced brush engines, you can usually find a way to make the brushes behave exactly how you want in this program which is the key to any digital painter's ultimate success.

Is it just me or is that price so stuck in 2001 that no sane person that's not already a regular customer would EVER buy it in the modern market?

Even Adobe upgraded their pricing strategy, but here corel sits stuck with it's head up it's ass thinking it's still the only program in the world competing for the "professional digital painter" title, which given the large list of programs both above and below this line is obviously not the case Disbelief .

But there's a reason for this price because even if this may no longer be the case, ever since the freaking 90s up until the mid 2000s this was indeed the one and only program professional grade software targeting digital artists in the whole god damn world . the only digital painting program besides photoshop (and maybe the now pretty much dead GIMP) worth taking seriously.

But unlike photoshop they weren't having any of that "image manipulation" bullshit, no their goal was to create a real, lifelike painting experience in the digital space and they got pretty damn close, with probably the best collection of brush engines the world has ever seen . this digital painting software is an industry standard for a good damn reason.

this may very well be the best digital painter's software on the market, But Corel needs to get with the times or get lost in my opinion.

7. Clip Studio Paint

Works on: Windows and MacOS | Price: $50/$220

Simple and elegant, quite likely the best software for manga and comic book creation, and painting in simple/cel shaded styles.

Previously known as manga studio, this little gem woulda probably made my top beginner friendly software list if it wasn't for it's manga drawing specialization.This software is as I just implied quite simple and elegant at first glance, instead of having one main general purpose brush engine like most, it has 7 different brush engines for different brush types (from watercolor and airbrush to pencil and special effects) all in the same simplicity tier as SAI.

this oftware seems to be more strongly marketed in Japan is the only truly professional class manga illustration software, it does that job and it does it really, really, really well, so if that is your thing, this is quite possibly THE best software for you .

and as it is really simple, you can also happily use it as your first software. my main reason for not putting it up at the top are it's plethora of manga/comic book creation features, it's animation support, and confusing pricing strategy.

It is also all around quite feature rich compared to my first 3 recommended for beginner programs, but makes up for it by having a very elegant UI design making it a solid 5th place for most beginner friendly software. This program does everything it claims to do exceptionally well and is best for manga and comic book creation and works super well for cel-shaded (simple) drawing styles.

The clip studio paint EX version has some unique features including Animation, 2D to 3D conversion, multi-page management and multi-page files. It also costs like one kidney, but the pro version is quite affordable.

The Others

ArtRage (A program that like corel painter tries to emulate the feel of painting with rl brushes, omitted due to the imo slightly unreasonable asking price of $80).

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro (Costs $30 per year which is fairly affordable, I tried it but was ultimately unmipressed due to the programs complete lack of capability for working at high/custom resolutions. It is very simple, but as the name implies, it's decent as a sketching program and nothing more, I would have liked to expect more from a company like Autodesk. While some artists have managed to make quite impressive looking work in it, it seems ultimately unable to produce production quality work.).

GIMP (free, omitted because krita basically does everything GIMP does better than GIMP does it, Krita started out as a rework of the gimp but grew fast into it's own separate, and superior program).

Conclusion

And that's it for digital painting software may you test everything and choose wisely. If I forgot your favorite program make sure to tell me which one that is in the comments .

If you want to work with photoshop / Corel Painter etc. I'd recommend the XP-Pen Innovator 16 Best Drawing Tablet With Screen 15.6inch , however you will need a pc/laptop with good specs.

I just got the xp-pen drawing tablet monitor a few days ago. I can already tell I am going to love it! I kept going back and forth between getting it or not, but I am glad I finally decided to just invest in it.

In my opinion: Quick and easy to use. Like a digital sketchbook. You can draw on screen. The pen-pressure is awesome. You can draw in incredible details.

Both the XP-Pen Artist Pro Series and Innovator 16 are within my price range, and although I am not a professional artist and have no plans to make any money off my art, I'm concerned that I may feel that the XP-Pen Drawing Display is a downgrade.

And that's it for digital painting software may you test everything and choose wisely. If I forgot your favorite program make sure to tell me which one that is in the comments .

Hope that helps!