# What's wrong with drawing with a mouse?



## Kopatropa (Nov 25, 2017)

Many people treat mouse drawing as a bad thing. Why?

I ask because my touch screen laptop is broken and I don't own a tablet, so I'm stuck with a mouse as I don't have the patience to go traditional.


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## -..Legacy..- (Nov 25, 2017)

It's just more difficult due to different sweeping brush movements, long brush strokes in particularly.  Your arm usually doesn't move during normal mouse operation, and you'll instinctly try to use your wrist only.  It's limited articulation occasionally gets in the way. 

You can adapt to use it well, but it's just an odd relationship.


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## reptile logic (Nov 25, 2017)

Last time I tried drawing with a mouse, those little feet kept getting in the ink. It made a terrible mess across the desk and floor as it ran to safety.

In truth, I cannot draw, so no help here.


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## fralea (Nov 25, 2017)

Nothings wrong with drawing with a mouse. There are some amazing mouse-only artists out there. Its just extremely difficult if you aren't using a vector program or making pixels. Talk about patience... drawing with a mouse requires WAY more patience than traditional.

Legacy's point about the small movements of a mouse brings up an actual downside though- if you aren't careful about stretching out your hand/wrist periodically drawing with a mouse for hours on end could lead to repetitive strain injury or similar.


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## connortheskunk (Nov 25, 2017)

I don't see anything wrong with it.  If that's the way you like to draw then go for it!  Many people can't draw as well with a mouse and prefer a tablet, though, so they probably just discourage it because it's not the way _they_ draw.


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## Kopatropa (Nov 25, 2017)

fralea said:


> Nothings wrong with drawing with a mouse. There are some amazing mouse-only artists out there. Its just extremely difficult if you aren't using a vector program or making pixels. Talk about patience... drawing with a mouse requires WAY more patience than traditional.
> 
> Legacy's point about the small movements of a mouse brings up an actual downside though- if you aren't careful about stretching out your hand/wrist periodically drawing with a mouse for hours on end could lead to repetitive strain injury or similar.



I don't think I have any vectoring programs. Is there one you would recommend?


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## fralea (Nov 25, 2017)

Kopatropa said:


> I don't think I have any vectoring programs. Is there one you would recommend?



Inkscape is a free one that I've used before!


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## Butt_Ghost (Nov 26, 2017)

You can draw with a mouse, it's just rarely ever going to feel good, not going to work well for painting/anything that takes advantage of pen pressure and won't teach you many transferable skills. 
It's worse in every way to all other available options, in other words.
But that doesn't mean you can't do it.


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## Water Draco (Nov 26, 2017)

At the end of the day you make the best use of the tools you choose to use or have available too you. 
There is nothing wrong with this.


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## redfox_81 (Nov 27, 2017)

There’s no pressure sensitivity with a mouse. This makes it a thousand times harder to give any of your drawings life, because you get no variety when it comes to line weight in your strokes. 

One way round this is to draw with paths, then stroke them with a brush preset that mimics real media. Man, even typing that sentence was exhausting...


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## zorua (Dec 2, 2017)

I've seen lots of art done with a mouse that I really like! If it's something you enjoy doing, for whatever the reason, I think you should do it


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## Scales42 (Dec 2, 2017)

Drawing with a mouse is surely possible, but I dont draw frequently.


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## Zerohi (Dec 2, 2017)

Personally I prefer drawing with a mouse, I just don't have one at the moment so I end up having to use the touch pad on my Laptop, but hey it comes to personal opinion, so yeah I do it and my art is ok


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## Rant (Dec 2, 2017)

fralea said:


> Nothings wrong with drawing with a mouse. There are some amazing mouse-only artists out there. Its just extremely difficult if you aren't using a vector program or making pixels. Talk about patience... drawing with a mouse requires WAY more patience than traditional.
> 
> Legacy's point about the small movements of a mouse brings up an actual downside though- if you aren't careful about stretching out your hand/wrist periodically drawing with a mouse for hours on end could lead to repetitive strain injury or similar.


I use to draw with a mouse and I was pretty good at it! Tablets are so expensive.


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## -..Legacy..- (Dec 2, 2017)

Rant said:


> I use to draw with a mouse and I was pretty good at it! Tablets are so expensive.



Wow, I'd love to see you work off a tablet now OwO.  That is beautiful work, and the colors are great!


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## Rant (Dec 2, 2017)

-..Legacy..- said:


> Wow, I'd love to see you work off a tablet now OwO.  That is beautiful work, and the colors are great!


I haven't drawn in years... 


Spoiler: Last thing I did on a tablet



It's not that great, couldn't do her muzzle at that angle and copped out with generic anime face


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## -..Legacy..- (Dec 2, 2017)

Rant said:


> I haven't drawn in years...
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Last thing I did on a tablet
> ...



I love the linework.  That makes mine feel inadequate lol.


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## Kopatropa (Dec 2, 2017)

Rant said:


> I use to draw with a mouse and I was pretty good at it! Tablets are so expensive.


Well you sure draw better than I do. This is what I recently did with a mouse and I can say it's not as good.


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## Everaven (Dec 2, 2017)

I am far from a pro at digital art (I have only been doing it for a few months) but I can't afford a tablet yet and I have still been pretty pleased with some of the pieces I've made with a mouse.  A lot of times mouse-drawn pieces don't have any line shape due to there being no pressure system, making the drawings look kinda flat and choppy. But there are plenty of ways to fix this and depending on the program it may not even be an issue!


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## fralea (Dec 3, 2017)

Kopatropa said:


> Well you sure draw better than I do. This is what I recently did with a mouse and I can say it's not as good.



Hey you actually got some lineweight going on in there. Don't sell yourself short, it has a nice stylish look to it.


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## Rant (Dec 3, 2017)

Kopatropa said:


> Well you sure draw better than I do. This is what I recently did with a mouse and I can say it's not as good.


Nah man you've got a nice style here!


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## quoting_mungo (Dec 4, 2017)

Kopatropa said:


> Many people treat mouse drawing as a bad thing. Why?
> 
> I ask because my touch screen laptop is broken and I don't own a tablet, so I'm stuck with a mouse as I don't have the patience to go traditional.


I treat it as a bad thing in the sense that anything I draw with a mouse turns out pretty godawful. (Pooossibly partly because mouse drawing also generally means MS Paint, but, yanno...) Getting smooth movement out of it is just not a skill I've mastered, though if pressed I could probably pick up coloring with one again.

Mouse drawing is, however, not a bad thing in the sense that mouse-drawn art is going to be inherently inferior, or that mouse drawing makes you a bad artist, or similar. Anyone who tries to tell you _that_ is full of it.


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## JCobalt (Dec 4, 2017)

I cannot use a tablet to draw using illustrator or other vector based platforms.  If you want to tool around with vector, Inkscape is free.  However, I found inkscapes shortcuts to be unintuitive, not to mention it crashes a lot on my computer.  If you have like 50 bucks and an amazon account you can spring for Xara which is a pretty comparable to illustrator (as of maybe CS1) vector program.  So maybe if you like doing vector work and want something a little more reliablr.  Of course I might be alone in my bad experience with Inkscape


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## Steelite (Dec 13, 2017)

Whew, pretty old thread... but, to the topic : I've been drawing with my mouse since... 2-3 years, I don't remember. For the lineart I use the vector tool, so that's with the mouse ; I only used the tablet to color..... but the tablet broke before I even learned how to shade lol. Had to learn to color with my mouse from there on, cuz I didn't wanna afford another tablet back then.
And now, I can safely say I don't need one, either, heh.
This one is the most recent piece that I made.


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## ArtyLoop (Dec 14, 2017)

Can't draw with the tablet... I have tried, its not going to fly. I can't draw with paper and pencil either. 
I can draw with a mouse- Sure it takes a bit longer but I can get the job done.
As already stated, my weapon of choice is Corel Draw


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