Almost every animator has a lightbox. It's an essential tool for making clean lines and accurate drawings, but it can be expensive depending on the one that you choose. If you're looking for the cheapest lightbox possible, still with great features, then this blog will run you through how you don’t need to have an expensive lightbox to meet your needs and we also recommend one of our top cheap lightboxes available on Amazon!
What Is A Lightbox?
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A lightbox is a simple device that you can use to trace your sketches on paper. It's basically just a box with translucent walls and a backlight, which makes it easier to see your drawing when working at night or in low-light conditions.
Nowadays a cheap lightbox for tracing is readily available for purchasing online and they come in convenient small sizes such as A4, they are also really thin and flat - unlike the more traditional ‘boxes’. They resemble a tablet and come with a USB port and cable making them easy to charge from your laptop, power bank, or USB adaptor!
Choosing a Cheap Lightbox For Tracing
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When you're choosing a lightbox, pay attention to the material that it is made from. Look for something that's translucent and scratch-resistant. The ideal material will also be easy to clean.
Lightboxes come in all shapes and sizes - from small tracing boards to large clipboards to tabletops--but they all use the same basic principle: translucent paper, glass, or plastic placed over a bright light source.
This combination allows you to trace an image by laying it over your drawing surface, making it easier for you as an artist because you don't need any special equipment besides your original artwork (and your pens and pencils of course!).
The Advantages of A Cheap Lightbox For Tracing
When you're a freelancer, every penny counts. You need to save money wherever possible in order to maximize your profits and keep your business afloat. Purchasing a cheap lightbox for tracing is one such way of doing this so look for good prices and even specials.
Another major advantage of a cheap lightbox for tracing is its portability. Small lightboxes are easy to transport around with you when needed, whether it be at home or on location. This is especially useful for animators and artists who work from home but need to take their work with them once in a while—such as when pitching projects to other companies! They are commonly A4 in size and super thin and lightweight, perfect for putting in your backpack.
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Lightboxes Aren’t Always Essential
Animators use a lot of different tools to create their art, in today's world animators mostly create their animations with digital tools and software. A cheap lightbox for tracing isn’t necessarily every animator's essential item so spending a lot of money on one doesn’t make sense.
Using paper for animations is slow and cumbersome, so most animators prefer working directly on their computers instead. However, a cheap lightbox for tracing is still a great learning tool for animators, and some animators still require animators to work on paper drawing their animation frames.
If you're an animator who has to draw a lot of frames, then having a lightbox is essential. The reason why most animators don't like tracing on their computers is that it takes too much time for them to get used to using software like Flash or Toon Boom Harmony.
A Cheap Lightbox For Tracing For Animators
This lightbox is perfectly adequate for animators looking for something inexpensive, light, and portable!
LitEnergy Portable A4 LED Copy Board Light Tracing Box by Amazon
This lightweight super slim light pad has a thickness of only 0.2’’, and the visual working area is 9’’x12’’. It incorporates an adjustable brightness setting for any lighting conditions that you need to work in! Simply press and hold the touch switch for several seconds until you get the desired brightness you want.
This light tracing box comes with energy-efficient flicker-free lights which provide a perfectly even surface to trace off of without hurting or straining your eyes. It is powered by USB, so you can easily connect it to your laptop, power bank, or USB adaptor.
It's a cheap lightbox but still good enough for animators. It's easy to use and doesn't require any special equipment, so you can set it up wherever you like without having to worry about power or lighting issues. You can take down the whole thing in under a minute if you need more space or want to move it elsewhere (like into a different room).
A Cheap Lightbox For Tracing Is The Best Solution!
GIF by Creative Bloq via Google
A cheap lightbox for tracing is perfect for animators because they won't need it all the time and they will be able to put it away when they aren't using it. It is also useful if you have a small space and want something similar to an artist's sketchbook so that you can carry it around easily in your bag or backpack.
A cheap lightbox is a very useful tool for tracing your drawings. It allows you to see what you're doing on paper and avoid mistakes before committing them to animation cels. The most important thing is that it works well for its purpose, so don't worry about splurging on an expensive lightbox if all you need is something cheap and effective.
For more information about cheap lightbox for tracing, as well as answers to any other questions you might have, be sure to follow our blogs, check out our free masterclass, and our Animation Business Accelerator Program, download a copy of our free marketing handbook, and check out our blog on “How to Start an Animation Studio”!
