The Best Black Friday Deals for VFX Artists (2021)

By: Kseniya Serebrennikova

Here are 6 websites where you can find amazing Black Friday deals to help you assemble your perfect work station for creating digital art.

It’s no secret that being a VFX artist is pretty expensive. Even a basic setup requires buying or renting several software applications and getting a powerful computer which already comes to over $1500. If we add a drawing tablet, a GPU, and an extra monitor to that, the total price is going to be painfully high. To make the process of assembling your work station a little more wallet-friendly, you might want to schedule your purchases wisely and get the most expensive things while they’re on sale. And guess what, THANK GOD IT’S (Black) FRIDAY!

We found some of the best Black Friday 2021 deals for digital artists so whether your goal is to purchase a high-end laptop or a pricey online course that has all the information you need, we got you!

1. Substance 3D Collection

Adobe’s Substance 3D Painter and Substance 3D Designer are many artists’ favorite tools when it comes to look development. These two applications are truly supreme when doing colorwork, texturing, and creating materials. There are, however, two more amazing tools in the Substance 3D Collection – Substance 3D Sampler and Substance 3D Stager.

Sampler is almost like a digital magic wand as it turns real-life images into 3D materials. You can create custom assets for your environments using pictures of the plants from your backyard or assemble an entire material library from different images of cloth.

Stager allows you to create 3D scenes and control the composition in real time. You can adjust the shapes, lights, and cameras. The tool will estimate the accuracy of your object placement and inform you if your physics is off.

Normally, the entire Substance 3D Collection costs $49.99 per month but this Black Friday, Adobe offers 20% off for the first year for those who purchase the Collection for the first time. This means you will be able to use all 4 apps for $39.99 per month for a year.

2. XP-Pen Graphic Tablets and Displays

A good drawing tablet is an essential tool for a digital artist no matter what your specialization is. While VFX artists are mostly fine with using a mouse, it is never a bad idea to have a graphic tablet as a supporting instrument. If you need to create custom assets or model characters for your simulations, a regular computer mouse will turn this process into torture.

XP-Pen is a solid choice and its products are significantly cheaper than those sold by more popular brands (we still love Wacom of course). XP-Pen’s Artist Display 15.6 Pro has appeared on numerous ‘best tablets & displays for digital art’ compilations and according to user reviews, it is a reliable high-quality product for a very reasonable price. XP-Pen Deco 01 V2 has also been called one of the best affordable graphic tablets for digital artists.

Apart from these two tablets, XP-Pen has an impressive range of art tools from basic fun-size tablets to gigantic 4K displays for professional use. The brand offers up to 35% off all tablets and displays until December, 1.

3. Rebelway Courses

This is one of our most generous sales because this Black Friday, you can purchase any course with a 25% discount. And yes, this includes our newest course, Intro to Unreal Engine for game design. Our course catalog has all the essential tutorials for VFX artists. Do you want to take a deep dive into the maths behind VFX production? Check out Maths for FX Artists, VEX for Houdini Artists, or Python for Houdini Artists. Want to create breathtaking visual effects for cinematic shots? We’ve got even more options for you in this case – from Environment Creation Using Houdini to Advanced Compositing for VFX.

Our Black Friday sale includes our all-time classics as well – you can get the Explosion FX in Houdini and Destruction FX in Houdini for $636.75 instead of $849. Our favorite Water FX in Houdini is a steal at $523.50 instead of $698. And just as usual, you can either pay the full amount right away or split the total price into two payments.

Investing in knowledge is always a smart idea because even if you get the best, pro-level digital art tools you won’t be able to create high-quality artworks if you don’t know how to. Our alumni work at big production studios and create high-end visuals for the movie, TV, animation, and game industries. You can read interviews with former Rebelway students here and if you are not sure which course you should take, check out our Course Quiz.

4. Corsair Coolers

Handling 3D art can be quite a demanding process for your PC, especially when you create detailed pieces that are polygon-heavy and render for ages. VFX production is never easy for your hardware and sometimes a regular built-in cooling system is not enough for a task this challenging. This is why some artists prefer to add a cooler to make sure the temperature of the CPU never gets dangerously high.

Corsair is known for its powerful cooling units that can handle heavy high-resolution graphics and extreme frame rates. Corsair’s iCUE H115i RGB PRO XT Liquid CPU Cooler and iCUE H150i ELITE CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler are many gamers and artists’ coolers of choice. And they glow with LED lights which makes them even cooler (excuse the silly pun).

You can get both of these cooling units at a special price on Amazon or Corsair’s official website. H115i RGB PRO XT costs $124.99 (compared to the regular $139.99) and H150i ELITE CAPELLIX costs $169.99 instead of $189.99 during Black Friday. You can also find more special offers on other PC components from Corsair on their website.

5. Dell Monitors

A good monitor that supports high-resolution graphics and has impeccable color representation is a crucial part of creating digital art. Plus, your eyes will thank you for a high-quality monitor because it is hard to keep looking at a low-res image with flickering pixels for a long time (and 3D art is not something you can spend an hour on and call it a day). So whether you are looking for a primary monitor for your computer setup or an additional screen to expand your working space, we recommend that you choose a gaming monitor that delivers clean and crisp images.

Dell has some of the best monitors for gamers and digital artists. Curved or regular, ultrathin or normal, huge 55-inch screens or compact 22-inch monitors – you can find an option that works best for you. Dell 32 Curved Gaming Monitor – S3222DGM and ALIENWARE 27 GAMING MONITOR – AW2721D are probably the brand’s most-loved gaming screens. With a QHD 2560 x 1440 resolution and impressive color coverage, they are perfect for 3D artists. You can save up to $300 on monitors and other products from Dell during Black Friday.

6. MSI Laptops

Setting up a high-quality desktop can be extremely budget-unfriendly and complicated and sometimes it’s not that necessary. A good gaming laptop can be way more powerful than many of the regular home-office computers. MSI is undoubtedly one of the best options you can find since their gaming laptops are the brand’s specialty. Powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX or AMD Radeon RX graphic cards, these guys are incredibly fast and reliable.

Even though it’s one of the pricier options, MSI’s Delta 15 A5EFK-001 seems to be the users’ favorite model. With AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800H at its core and 10 GB VRAM it is a solid choice for digital artists. For those who are looking for a little more affordable option, GF65 would be a great one. It has 4 cores and 6 GB VRAM so if you are not planning to create Hollywood-level visuals every single day, this could be your perfect laptop.

You can save up to $400 on MSI laptops during Black Friday. Delta 15 A5EFK-001 now costs $1299.99 instead of $1599.99 and GF65 Thin 10UE-213 is only $849.99 compared to $1099.99 before the sale.

Learn How to Use Industry-Standard VFX Tools

Have you ever dreamed of creating world-class VFX like a pro? If so check out Introduction to Houdini FX. Our online course will teach you the essentials you need to know to get started with Houdini, the most exciting VFX software in the world. Check out the course page below, and when you’re ready you can sign up to get free lessons delivered to your inbox on the course page.