The iPad Pro and the right drawing app can inspire almost anyone to unleash their inner artist. From the iPad’s earliest days, artists instantly identified it as a creative medium, and even for longstanding digital artists, life was never quite the same after 2010. Since then, the iPad’s popularity as a drawing and painting tool has grown, not only with a huge variety of apps made especially for it, but with the launch of the superlative Apple Pencil, which accelerated the wow factor. Although some still argue that nothing can truly replace a traditional piece of paper or sheet of canvas, the iPad Pro, for many commercial and fine art purposes, has proven a fine substitute for analog art. The larger screen opens the iPad Pro to new levels of creativity and turns a fun sketching tool into a serious artistic platform.
Designed from the ground up with the Apple Pencil in mind, the iPad Pro is the ultimate digital canvas. There are scores of drawing apps in the App Store, and many of them have already been optimized for the Pro’s enlarged screen and the Pencil’s fine-point tip. Below are 20 of the best drawing apps for the iPad Pro, so you can become the Michelangelo of the mobile world.
Ibis Paint X
Ibis Paint X is an appealing, multi-faceted drawing app that offers a variety of tools. This versatile app offers 1,000 fonts, 312 brushes, 58 filters, 46 screen tones, 27 blending modes, stroke stabilization, radial line and symmetry rulers, and the ability to record drawings. The free, ad-supported version facilitates smooth drawing at up to 120 fps with brush types like dip pens, felt tip pens, digital pens, airbrushes, fan brushes, flat brushes, pencils, oil brushes, charcoal brushes, crayons, and stamps. Brush parameters feature starting/ending thickness, starting/ending opacity, and initial/final brush angle. Sliders enable brush thickness adjustments and opacity previews. You can add unlimited layers and set parameters for each layer individually, such as opacity, alpha blending, and adding, subtracting, and multiplying. New filters for the latest version include Lens Blur, Hexagonal Pixelate, Square Pixelate, Triangular Pixelate, Ripple, Twirl, Fisheye Lens, and Polar Coordinates.
Morpholio Trace
Trace is an architectural design app that lets you develop ideas as you work through various phases of the design process. Made for architects, designers, interior designers, illustrators, and other creatives, Trace lets you conceptualize your designs by drawing on top of PDFs, maps, photos, drawing sets, and background templates in high resolution with tools, brushes, and pens. An AR perspective finder sets grids in real space. You can draw and measure or draw over any site to scale, auto draw to vanishing points, mark up and share drawings, move paper as you would with paper tracing, and access photos from your camera or the cloud. A scale pen gives you smart line weights for precision drawing. The basic app is free but various pro-level subscriptions range from $5 per month to $20 per month.
MediBang Paint
MediBang Paint is an easy-to-use painting program that may remind you of Photoshop, in that it allows you to work with layers. It has a very good brush editor and offers the ability to add styles to your layers. This program has so many tools that it feels more at home on the larger iPad Pros, but it is also compatible with the fourth-generation iPad and above, or iPad Mini 2 and above. If you like to draw comic books, this app gives you a lot of comic book fonts to get the professional look you want. You can save your projects locally or to the cloud. Recent versions implement the Eyedropper tool in the long tap, added a reference window, and implemented Unsharp Mask.
ArtRage ($5)
The main idea of ArtRage is to make the painting experience as realistic as possible on the iPad. You can mix different paints as though you were blending them on a real canvas with a palette knife, airbrushing, or daubing oils. This app works with layers, so if you’re already familiar with Photoshop, you’ll feel right at home with the blend modes. ArtRage also allows you to record your strokes for later viewing on your desktop. It not only supports the Apple Pencil, but also Wacom, Adonit, and Pogo styli.
Autodesk Sketchbook
Even if you’re not a professional artist, you’ve probably heard about Autodesk Sketchbook. It’s one of the most popular apps for artists and the rest of us. The layout is everything when it comes to design programs, and Sketchbook’s toolbars are organized in an easily accessible way — and you can even pin them to the screen. Great features include import and export from and to Photoshop, and the ability to zoom in as much as 2,500% to let you work on those fine details. It supports the Apple Pencil, along with some of the better styli available for other tablets. Recent versions feature 1-, 2-, and 3-point perspective guides, a snapping toggle, vanishing point lock, horizon line visibility, and curve ruler. Grid tools can be customized, infinite, or constrained.
The best drawing apps for the iPad Pro [Digital Trends]