Tools & Gear

Below you can see some of the tools that I use on a day to day basis (or fairly frequently) in order to work as a designer, illustrator, occasional photo retoucher, instructor and small creative business owner. 

Everything listed below I have either paid for myself, or it might be a free service or software. I am only recommending products that I use myself.

Some of these tools contain affiliate links. This means that if you buy something after clicking on one of these links, I may make a small commission. There is absolutely no additional cost to you to click on these links.

Software

Adobe Creative Cloud Full Plan - This plan covers all of the software by Adobe. I teach several of them so it makes sense financially for me to get the full plan.
If you are just interested in Photoshop - get the Adobe Photography Plan - it includes Photoshop AND Lightroom for the excellent value price of 9.99 per month. 

Laptops

HP ZBook X2

I bought the HP ZBook X2 laptop because it is a powerful tool for digital artists. It’s almost like a combination of a touch screen laptop with Wacom pen drawing capabilities. One feature I particularly like is that there are a set of buttons on each side of the screen that can be customised as shortcuts while drawing on the screen. Another major benefit is that the keyboard is Bluetooth and detachable and still works. The downside of this laptop is that it is very expensive. I actually bought a refurbished one on Amazon. Having said that, I have this laptop for well over two years and I still use it every day for illustration work. It has paid for itself many, many times over.

Apple MacBook Air

I use the Apple MacBook Air for teaching in the classroom. It’s reliable, it’s got beautiful graphics, I can attach it to my Wacom Cintiq for design and illustration work. You can buy them new or refurbished from Apple.

Wacom Drawing Tablets

Wacom tablets are not the cheapest available but they are very good quality.  I’ve been using one for about 15 years.

One by Wacom Tablet

My first Wacom pen tablet was called a Graphire, which is not made anymore. The next pen tablet I bought was a Wacom Bamboo. The Bamboo has been superseded now by the One by Wacom.  They cost about 60 US Dollars for the medium-sized tablet. I think the small size tablets are too small. The medium size fits nicely into a laptop bag and has a bigger drawing area. These are a great starter tablet and the one I recommend for my students.

Wacom Intuos Pro

When the time was right, i.e. I was earning a bit more, I bought the Intuos Pro pen tablet. I bought the large size. As well as having more pressure sensitivity, the biggest benefit in moving to an Intuous Pro is that there are buttons and a customisable dial built into the tablet. These allow you to use shortcuts directly from the tablet instead of going back and forth to your keyboard. This is a big time saver when you’re working on creative projects. 

Wacom Cintiq 24

The next step up is the Wacom Cintiq. I waited a long time to buy one of these. Why? They are expensive. However, I can honestly say that when I did buy one, it completely changed how I worked as an illustrator. Instead of drawing on a pen tablet which is connected to your computer, with the Cintiq you draw directly onto the screen. It feels more in line with drawing on paper. Again, the benefit here is the amount of time I saved when working directly on the screen. I own the Cintiq Pro 24.  The 24 refers to the 24 inch size of the screen. 

iPad

iPad Pro 12.9

For both business and pleasure, I bought the iPad Pro 12.9 inch. It is gorgeous and lovely to use. It hasn’t replaced my laptop by any means but I find I can sketch on it and do some work tasks. 

iPad Mini 5

Last year I bought an iPad mini. This is also gorgeous and lovely to use and is like a shrunk-down version of the 12.9 inch. I probably use this more than the large iPad pro. It fits in my handbag and I love sketching and reading on it.

Web Hosting

I’ve been hosting my websites with Bluehost for years and years. I don’t really have any other hosting service that I can compare it too. I generally find the service to be good and reliable.