I love XP-Pen Pen Displays, they rival Wacom and are IMO the best tablet out there (I say, having tried Wacoms, Huions, Trusts, etc). Lots of people love Ibis Paint, Paint Tool Sai 2 (my personal preference), Krita, Photoshop (it's good for painting!).

You have liked this post!

it all comes down to preference, really. i like pen tablets without displays, as opposed to display tablets or large stand alone tablets. i use an extremely old wacom intuos but i've heard xp pen and huion are good brands too. i'd say do your research for what type of tablet suits you most, i wouldn't be using a non-display tablet if i hadn't learnt how to draw digitally with it a decade ago and have a hard time shifting to anything else.
clip studio paint is my favorite program, i really like the tools that are included and it goes on sale quite often.

You have liked this post!

That's super interesting to read mewflakes! I personally do prefer pen displays (even though I learned with a teeny weeny now-discontinued Wacom Bamboo One over a decade ago as well!) but then I do suffer from Aphantasia (I can't see images in my head) so being able to just draw onto the screen really helps me imagine things!

You have liked this post!

that makes sense!
i think that i'm more partial to having no display because i focus less on the surface i'm drawing on and more at the thing that i'm drawing. i'm lefthanded as well, so i think having the screen be on a monitor and that's it also helps with the flow of art since my hand position doesn't get in the way of the screen LOL
i've had the opportunity to do work on those huge cintiqs and owned a few smaller displays but i just found i didn't like it as much. it's weird!

You have liked this post!

It definitely was a massive learning curve and weird at first thats for sure.

You have liked this post!