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[Vincent Grayson]

Answer depends, there are lot more options now than five years ago.

What level she's at? Is she a hobbyist? Student? Does she want something more portable or is she fine with a desktop?

She's only twelve, and spends a lot of time working on characters in still drawings for now. She also does a lot of movies using her toys. So she wants to move from that to using animation.

I figured the best place to start would be a tablet for drawing and learning how to use layers and such.

 

[killer rin]

She's only twelve, and spends a lot of time working on characters in still drawings for now. She also does a lot of movies using her toys. So she wants to move from that to using animation.

I figured the best place to start would be a tablet for drawing and learning how to use layers and such.

Well, if you want an absolute barebones cheap solution, you can get her a USB Pen Tablet. The Wacom Bamboo is ~$50 and the Wacom Intuos ~$125. They aren't as powerful as the more expensive models and they don't have screens on them, but they are cheap and get the job done. Its USB, so you just plug it in, download the configuration drivers to mess with the buttons (if it has any) and pressure sensitivity and off you go.

I personally have the old Wacom Bamboo Create from several years ago...though that was before they rebranded everything and would now put it under the Intuos Brand.

Anyhow, with a Pen Tablet, the learning curve isn't too hard. It's just weird for the first couple of minutes since you have to get used to watching the computer screen while learning where the corners of your tablet are and how far you need to move your hand, but she would definitely be able to get the hang of it after a couple minutes.