Budget friendly desktop?

Help! My son wants to learn Sprite animation so I got him this program. I have no idea what I’m doing. We tried it on his older laptop but I’ve read it’s better on a desktop with a Wacom tablet. What desktop would be best? He’s 12 years old and I’m not tech savvy in the least. I subscribed to Skillshare for some classes but I think I need to get him the proper equipment first. Any budget friendly tips? Or any tips for newbies?

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A tablet doesn’t really make much difference in Aseprite. In Aseprite, a tablet can only move the cursor around, same as a mouse (at least currently). So, if you just hook up a USB mouse (which should be very cheap at your local office store or computer store) to the laptop, your son will be able to do everything the pros can. For blocking in large shapes (e.g. for big illustrative pieces), a tablet can be a little faster, but for most sprite work, a tablet isn’t helpful. For some aspects of sprite work, using a mouse is faster and more precise, so even artists who normally use a tablet often switch to using a mouse for most of their sprite work.

Unless your son’s laptop outright lags when Aseprite is running, you shouldn’t need a desktop. Hook up a USB mouse to it so that he doesn’t have to use a trackpad, and you’re golden!

His laptop is pretty old so he needs something new. I wanted to get the iPad Pro cause I’m more familiar with apple products but o guess it doesn’t work well on a tablet. Do you know if Pixaki uses sprite sheets?

you can see some tutorials on youtube or take a pixel art course you teach your child. and in fact the table does not make any difference. You can use the tricks.

There some older budget dell desktop that got an i5 and 8gb of ram and at lest an 2gb gpu that more then enuff for sprite work there going for $200 to $300 and you can upgrade later on if you need to.

On an Side Note the new raspberry pi 4 came out and that is great for small work with game making and sprite work.

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ipad pro is way overkill for a 12 year old wanting to do pixel art. You could get a new ipad (6th generation) , they are like $320 brand new if you really want to go the iOS route. But Aseprite is the best pixel art program by a huge margin and not available on iOS.

i have a pc/wacom tablet/ipad pro , and i use my ipad pro to sketch with, but when doing pixel art I use a mouse on my desktop. I don’t use my wacom tablet at all with aseprite. There is really no benefit to using a tablet doing pixel art because you aren’t drawing since the area you are working in is so small, you are selecting pixels, making lines, etc. A mouse is just more suited for pixel art. Basically any computer will work for making pixel art it’s not taxing at all, you don’t need a modern rig.

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