Whether you’re an experienced sketch artist or just starting out, it’s important to find the best drawing apps to get the job done. Luckily, apps like this are plenty of free and paid applications out there to suit every skill level and budget.
If you’re looking for a professional-grade sketching app, Autodesk’s Sketchbook might be just what you need. It offers an incognito user interface on your Mac or Windows computer and enables you to create and edit drawing spaces across all of your devices. It’s also a great tool for sharing your work with others.
Another top pick for professional artists is Procreate. Its customizable gesture controls make it feel like a personalized drawing experience, and the advanced features it supports, such as Quickshape, layering and alpha locks can help you get the most out of your creative process.
It’s also an excellent app to draw on the go, with its support for Apple’s Pencil. The app can sync with other iOS or Mac-based devices, and it even has a dedicated community site for sharing your work with others.
Graphic is a full-featured drawing app that can handle a wide variety of designs, from icons and logos to sketches, cartoons and CAD drawings. It also boasts variable-width brush strokes and pressure-sensitive support for the Apple Pencil.
Affinity Designer is a powerful vector design tool for the desktop, and it can also be used on your tablet. It has a huge library of brushes, and a color swatch panel with Pantone colors so you can match your designs with real-world colors. It also has an extensive collection of shapes and layers for creating logos, illustrations, and other designs in minutes, making it an ideal choice for the designer on the go.
Assembly is an iOS-based app that takes a different approach to digital art creation. Instead of relying on Bezier curves, it aims to simplify the process by allowing you to quickly build and assemble vector-based artwork. Its array of shapes and templates can be stacked, intersected and cut out to shape the perfect logo or other design.
Pixel Art Software for Android and iPad (Pixaki)
The best drawing apps are usually the ones that can produce stunning results. This is especially true with pixel art, where the ability to produce unique, artistic pieces can be a game-changer for anyone who hasn’t tried it before.
While it takes some time to adapt to this new style of drawing, pixel art can be a truly inspirational way to get your imagination flowing and experiment with new ways to express yourself. Pixaki is a popular pixel art drawing app that can be used on both the iPad and Android devices, and it’s one of the few on this list that’s actually made for pixel art.
Krita is an open source painting program that’s available for free on Linux, and you can also download by this link and use a variety of brushes from the community. There’s a tutorial, an online user manual, and a community gallery where you can check out other users’ artwork.