I’m so bad at getting gifts for people. I have plenty of ideas, but when it comes time to actually buy or make them, my brain is empty. I always intend to write down ideas as they come to me throughout the year, but the ADHD strikes and I move on before I get the chance. I know I’m not alone with this, and I hear people constantly saying they don’t know what to get me either, so I decided to do something about it. There’s tons of gifts tailored to traditional artists, and plenty to people with desk jobs, but there aren’t a lot for people who are artists who work at desks, like myself. If you have a digital artist in your life, I can almost guarantee they’ll like at least a couple of these.
Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with any of these products or brands. These are honest ideas I have had organically through research online and amongst friends, as well as my own experiences and wishlist. I try to link to the original creator of each item and avoid places like Amazon where I can. Shop small and shop local when possible!
General Gifts
Instructional Art Books
An artist of any kind is always learning. There are many many art books out there, and if your artist has mentioned wanting a book, definitely get them that! But if they haven’t given any hints, there are two books that will always be well received.
The first is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s been all over the internet as a way to tap into your creativity and develop yourself as an artist. Before I saw it recommended on TikTok, my own therapist told me I should read it. Do with that information as you will.
Second is Anatomy for Sculptors by Uldis Zarins, the gold standard for understanding human anatomy. It isn’t just for sculptors, this book contains incredibly concise and clear illustration of the human figure and has helped me tons.
As always, try to support your local bookstores! If they don’t have the book your looking for in stock, they will more than likely love to order it for you.
IRL Eyedropper Tool
To be honest, I want one of these so bad. It’s a little device that connects to an app on your smartphone that allows you to scan colors and get the color information. The idea of being able to scan a flower and get it’s HEX code to use in a drawing is so cool. This is the Nix brand, but there’s also Color Muse, which I’ve heard just as much about.
Gift Cards to Digital Asset Stores
I try to make my art look as traditional as possible, so I use a lot of assets that mimic paper, pencils, pens, and paint. My favorite suppliers are True Grit Supply and Retro Supply Co. The both have awesome assortments of different kinds of vintage media textures, pens, and shading for many different programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, Affinity, and Clip Studio Paint.
Two Finger Drawing Glove
One of the most annoying things as a digital artist is when your pinky decides to act as the stylus and messes with your drawing. Two finger drawing gloves keep the primary fingers free while protecting the drawing tablet from registering touches as well as keeping the screen more clean. There’s tons of different ones out there, and all are very affordable.
External Hard Drive
It’s said that only have one backup is having no backup and you really need two just in case. So even if your artist already has an external hard drive, having another for when they run out of room on the first one, or to have a second copy if the first gets corrupted is always a good idea. And if they don’t have one, they probably should! Raw art files with all the layer information and at full size can get very large, so this one has two terabytes to fit all the art in.
Prints, Stickers, Merch, or Art Books from Their Favorite Artists
They have a favorite artist or ten, I promise, and it’s an easy question to ask if they haven’t already told you. That artist probably sells their art in a few forms, such as a print you can frame. Probably the most special way is if they have published a book of their art. This print is by Hookie Duke, one of my favorite artists.
Patreon Subscription
This goes with the previous point really well if you want to get more than one thing! Most artists have Patreons where they have exclusive content and often send out monthly gifts. It’s a monthly subscription and often they have multiple tiers. A six to twelve month gifted sub to their favorite artist would definitely go over well. Kelsey Beckett is another favorite artist of mine with both free and paid tiers.
Wrist Support Brace
Repetitive motion injuries are incredibly common amongst artist, and it doesn’t help that a lot of us also have some kind of hypermobility. A good wrist brace both help prevent injury as well as relieving pain from injuries that have already happened. I’ve had varying kinds of arm issues, from carpal tunnel and tendonitis to De Quervain’s tenosynovitis severe enough I needed surgery, so I can testify how important this can be. Of all the ones I’ve tried, this green one by Mueller is my favorite, and even got compliments at the ER when I fell and sprained my wrist. It’s breathable, lightweight, just flexible enough to not get in the way, and the edges don’t irritate my skin.
Canvas Lamp
If your artist is active on social media, a good way to photograph and film their process. It’s a desk lamp ring light that holds a phone, has a weighted base for balance, and is widely popular amongst social media artists, though it is a bit pricey.
Blanket Hoodie
I live in Texas, but it still gets cold a few months out of the year. During those years I live in my Comfy. It’s warm, soft, and the sleeves offer mobility and don’t get in the way while I work. I recommend this to honestly anyone, but we artists often sit in one place for a very long time and tend to get very cold. I have the original Comfy (in pink!) but they have multiple different lengths and weights to customize to anyone’s preference.
Headphones or Earphones
For the most part, artists rarely work in silence. In my traditional studio classes the instructor would play music (often lo-fi) and now I either have a movie on, watch YouTube, or listen to Apple Music. This past year I got a pair of AirPod Pros and a pair of Sennheiser Momentum 4s, and they have made my creative endeavors so much more enjoyable. I AirPods I take with me and use when I’m out in public and drawing somewhere like a coffeeshop. The Sennheisers are my desk headphones and nothing beats their comfort and quality at their price point. I tend to prefer wireless as the cord drives me crazy and gets in the way, but wired headphones can have better sound quality, so it depends on the person.
Articulated Drawing Action Figures
These are quite the upgrade from the wooden figurines we’ve all seen in photo shoots of art studios. They’re marketed towards comics and manga with their ability to make more dynamic poses, but the detail, flexibility, and anatomy can be useful to any kind of figure drawing.
Color Wheel Keychain
It’s a little keychain that’s both a color wheel and a fidget toy! It shows different color combinations with a spinnable top layer and I honestly want one really bad. Portable, functional, and cute! It also comes as a pin.
Fingerless Gloves
This goes right up there with the Comfy for seasonal practicality. My hands get absolutely frigid during the winter months when I type or draw, and so I knit myself and my husband a pair of wool fingerless gloves. There’s tons of different options out there, with variations in thickness, material, length, and individual finger gussets or not. While you can definitely buy mass produced ones, these are small enough that I’d recommend hunting through Etsy or even better, if you have a friend who knits or crochets, see if you can commission a pair from them!
Art Books from Their Favorite Movies or Video Games
Chances are your artist is inspired by a movie or a video game at some point in their development as an artist. For me it was Studio Ghibli movies. One year I was gifted a book about the making of Howl’s Moving Castle and it’s still one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever received. Most major pictures and video games have books that feature behind the scenes and concept art and can be useful resources and inspiration.
Livestream Shortcut Device
If your digital artist is a streamer and doesn’t have one of these already, this will make their life so much easier. It’s a little keypad with configurable shortcuts to control their stream without having to interrupt or change windows, making things like transitions to breaks and different screens much smoother.
Highly Subjective Gifts
These gifts are a bit more expensive and highly dependent on the receiver. These are ones you need to be 100% sure are something they want, and if they do, I don’t think you’ll ever be able to top them as a gift.
Art Program Purchase or Subscription
This will depend on if they already have a program, want to change, or are just starting out and need something to start with. Procreate is exclusive to iPad and iPhone and is a small one time purchase. Clip Studio Paint has a subscription or a purchase, depending on the license and device. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator are expensive and subscription exclusive, but is the standard for graphic design. There’s also free versions that they might prefer, so make sure you aren’t buying them something they don’t want to use.
Drawing Tablet
This ties in with what program they use. There are independent portable screened tablets like the iPad, but there are also drawing tablets that plug in to the computer. These can come with or without screens. The major brands for the computer tablets are Huion, Wacom, and XP-Pen. Definitely be certain about which tablet they want and which model, as there’s so many and they probably know exactly which one they want.
Ergonomic Chair
Digital artists sit in chairs for extended periods of time and our posture and butts pay for it. An ergonomic chair can make the day go by much smoother and help prevent posture related issues in the long term. They can be a worthy investment, since the more expensive ones are usually the ones that are the most beneficial, but everyone is built different and what might be comfortable to you might not work for them. This might be best as an experience where you can take them chair shopping and they can test them out for themself. The two brands that are the highest rated are Herman Miller and Steelcase, the second of which my husband got from a secondhand office furniture store for a pretty big discount.
Procreate Specific Gifts
Paperlike or Nano-texture Screen Protectors
Glass is a very slippery thing to draw on and many times iPad users will want to have a textured screen protector to mimic drawing on paper. There’s a few different ones out there, the most popular being Paperlike. I personally find these too textured and wanted a glass one, so I opted for a mimic of the Apple Nano-texture glass. It’s still a little slick, but I prefer it to the actual paper textured ones and they don’t desaturate the display as much.
Apple Pencil Grips or Covers
Apple Pencils are a little heavy and slick, so some people opt to put a cover on it. There are the traditional ones that are ergonomic finger grips, and then there are full silicone covers. Many of them prevent charging for the 2nd gen pencils and on, so make sure to check for that if not having to remove the cover every time to charge is important. There are some sleeves that are thinner on one side so charging can still work, though they don’t always fit in cases that have a slot for side charging and have to be taken off anyways.
Stickers to Decorate Their Case
Honestly there’s never a reason to not gift stickers, but this is another excuse to collect more. Theming them to art is also a fun way to show intention! My favorite one right now is this CYMK cat sticker for inspiration.
Replacement Apple Pencil Nibs
These are a really annoying thing to replace only to realize you’re on your last one already. If they get too worn, they can scratch the screen, so it’s important to have extras on hand! This can pair really well with a paper texture screen protector since those wear the nibs even faster.
Apple Pencil Pro
iPads are expensive enough that many times the idea of adding a $130 Apple Pencil is just too much, which is so incredibly valid. But with the new Procreate update that has brushes that support barrel roll, as well as the new haptic feedback for certain tools, it really is worth it. Not all iPads are compatible, so be sure to check if it’ll work with their iPad.
Procreate Hotkey Keypad
These are available for computers too, but there are ones that are compatible with Apple and Procreate. This can really smooth out the creative flow, though it might have a little bit of a learning curve if your artist is unfamiliar with using hotkeys for art.
iPad Case
Chances are if your artist has an iPad they already have a case, but if they don’t or it’s falling apart, this is a great gift. This Zugu case is one of the best on the market and what I have on my iPad. It’s incredibly sturdy and it makes carrying my iPad around with me much less stressful. The stand is magnetic to the back and also to each slot in the base so it won’t slide around while propped up. It’s also a blank slate, perfect for stickers.
Computer Specific Gifts
Hotkey Keypad
Some artists prefer to use their full keyboard for hotkeys and shortcuts, but there are smaller keypads specific to drawing. This one by Huion would work really well for someone who already has a Huion tablet, but honestly any Bluetooth numpad can do this.
Tourbox
This is another hotkey device, but it’s specifically made for digital creatives and has some insanely cool features. If you have a serious artist or editor in your life, they will probably appreciate this.
Screen Color Accuracy Calibrator
Did you know most screens are not color accurate? Most of the time you can calibrate to an okay degree just using the computer’s settings. For artists who print their art or do client work, color accuracy in very important. There are tools to help calibrate your monitor, they aren’t cheap, but they are incredibly useful.
Conclusion
Hopefully this gives you some ideas on the kinds of gifts a digital artist might appreciate! There are tons of different options for nearly all of these products, so don’t forget to do your own research. I intend for this list to be a starting off point to help people stuck on gift ideas to get inspiration and go from there. Did I miss anything that I should add in the future? Let me know!
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