Humans have been drawing since the dawn of ages, and we’ve come a long way from cave art made with charcoal. Nowadays, you don’t even need an actual brush to paint because now we have apps on our touchscreen tablets and phones to aid us in our creative endeavours.
Now, our dog paintings don’t have to look like vague log sticks on cave walls. Instead, illustrating is so easy that you can even make 3D versions of them. Here is a list of the best illustrating apps if you’re looking to delve into the world of digital art.
Procreate
Procreate is a no-brainer if you’re looking to start drawing on your tablet. As one of the top apps in the apple store, Procreate is really good, whether you’re looking to just sketch, all the way to 3D model painting. Personally, I used Procreate and it’s really simple to use and not intimidating at all.
Procreate was selected for the second time as an Apple Design Award winner for providing great user experiences by supporting people from a diversity of backgrounds, abilities, and languages.
Procreates recently added a suite of advanced accessibility features. These include advanced Motion Filtering for artists with tremors, Single Touch gestures for those with limited hand mobility, and new Color Cards to help the visually impaired.
Launched in 2011 and now with almost 20 million downloads, Procreate has been the number one best-selling paid iPad app on Apple’s App Store for the last five years.
Apple enthusiasts who want a handy, powerful, and portable drawing option will enjoy this Procreate and it even allows you to create and sell your own brushes to others. Since it’s used by many users, there are plenty of easy-to-follow drawing modern guides on YouTube as well and as an app, they are constantly updating their user experience for users.
For only a one-time purchase of RM39.90 from the App Store, it’s an easy app to use if you’re only starting out.
Blender
Blender is open-source 3D animation software for creating 3D models. It supports everything from modelling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, to video editing and game creation.
One of Blender’s newer and cooler features is the grease pencil mode, which allows you to draw in 2D but in 3D space. You can use the mode to make all kinds of vector-based artwork, sculptures, storyboards, animations, and comics. If you need inspiration or a starting place, Blender hosts a ton of templates from its community.
Blender has no price tag and is always free to use. You can invest, participate, and help to advance a powerful collaborative tool with its GNU General Public License (GPL).
Clip Studio Paint
Clip Studio Paint is a family of software applications developed by Japanese graphics software company Celsys used for making digital comics, general illustration, and 2D animation. The software is available for macOS or Windows and is designed for use with a stylus and a graphics tablet or tablet computer.
Many webtoons artists like using Clip Studio Paint because they provide 3D models to make it super easy to draw realistic-looking art. Instead of worrying over structure and design, you can draw any pose and angle you want.
You can even convert images and 3D models to line art. With plenty of materials available on Clip Studio ASSETS, you’ll never run out of inspiration, as they put out 1,000 new materials every month. Besides that, AI colourisation is also available for you to colour your drawing easily.
Their Clip Studio Paint Pro is suitable for character art, concept art, and illustration for RM244.02 while their Clip Studio Paint Ex for comics, manga, webtoons & animations costs RM1,069.02. There is also a free trial period for up to six months for you to you decide it’s the tool for you.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free and open-source vector-based drawing program. In contrast to bitmap graphics editors, storing graphics in a vector format is more suitable for design compositions, logos, images with text, and technical illustrations. Vector graphics also allow for sharp printouts and won’t blur when you resize them. It’s a serious alternative to premium tools like Adobe Illustrator, and users love it for creating clip art, typography, flowcharts, diagrams, and infographics, as well as simple cartoons.
The items you create in Inkscape are the SVG file format, but you can also export in PNG, OpenDocument Drawing, DXF, sk1, PDF, EPS, and PostScript. You have the option to draw free-hand with your pen or you can use the shape tools to get a just-right look to your drawings. Inkscape is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows users.
