The drawing app sounds cool, isn’t it?
But, it’s an intellectual treat for designers and artists if one is serious about sketching.
It’s more of a responsive art app – with a good system for using digital gadgets. It is a complete suite of precision tools needed to express your creativity powerfully.
It gives you a superpower. Yes, it does, believe me.
Even if you are a novice or wannabe artist thinking of starting sketching, the drawing or sketching apps for Android and iPhone listed in this article can improve your learning experience.
I have compiled a list of some great drawing apps for iPhone and Android to help you choose the best. Let’s dive straight into the list.
Procreate
Procreate is a popular sketching app that gives life to your imagination. Procreate claims to be a complete art studio packed with intuitive and unique features. Procreate is integrated with a huge library of brushes, charcoal, inks, and pencils to lay beautiful illustrations and textures. It complements your drawing with finishing filters, perfect finish touch, and digital effects. It is known to offer a fast workflow.
If you are looking for a professional art app – Procreate deserves a try.
Features
- Procreate supports ultra-high def 4K canvas with a scope of 128 layers.
- It comes with around 200 customizable handcrafted brushes. You can even download any other preferred brush.
- It offers complete color control – color harmony and color dynamics.
- Power moves – offer you multi-touch gestures. It is designed to keep the user interface simple and accelerate the workflow to the max.
- It works on the Valkyrie engine to offer the best performance.
- Procreate works fast at 120 fps, exploring the full advantage of Apple’s ProMotion technology.
- It offers several innovative features like Colordrop, Drawing Assist, Streamline, and QuickShape to create art that moves the minds of the people.
- It offers a handy Procreate Handbook. The handbook is well-equipped with information on different tools. In addition, you can visit the community on Procreate; people discuss their confusion and issues regarding the platform.
Compatibility
Procreate is exclusively for iOS. You can get it from the Apple App Store.
Pricing
It will cost you around $9.99.
Reviews
Procreate is rated 4.5 out of 5 on the Apple App Store. It has garnered very good reviews from users. However, I have tried to present a brief regarding its pros and cons based on those reviews to understand how far this app can help you.
- Simple UI
- Versatile brushes
- Complete package at an affordable price – no need for any other subscriptions like Creative Cloud
- There aren’t many cons mentioned by users, except for making it a bit more flexible and versatile.
Adobe Illustrator Draw
Adobe Illustrator Draw is the easiest drawing app available in the market. It offers vibrant sketches. The interface is intuitive, and the UI is responsive and clean. You can further complement the app with Creative Cloud Integration.
As an Adobe product, you can count on flexibility, superior quality, and regular updates.
Features
- Adobe Illustrator Draw is a vector-based app, which means size scaling is no longer an issue.
- Adobe Sensei helps you work smart by automatically grasping colors from photos to your designs.
- The infographic design in Adobe Illustrator takes your data visualization to the next level.
- It also offers collaborative editing. It gathers all the edits in a single document, eliminating the need to send large files.
Compatibility
It works for both Android and iOS. Android users can install it from Google Play Store and iOS users can get it from Apple App Store.
Pricing
It is a free app but includes four plans for in-app purchases.
- $9.99/mo for Adobe Illustrator on iPad
- $14.99/mo for Adobe Design Mobile
- $79.99/yr for Adobe Illustrator on iPad
- $149/yr for Adobe Design Mobile.
Reviews
The app is rated 4.6 out of 5 on the Apple App Store and 4.1 on the Google Play Store. Here are some critical pros and cons points mentioned by the users.
- It runs smoothly and feels like second nature.
- However, recent updates don’t run the app as smoothly as before.
Sketchbook
Sketchbook by Autodesk is an immensely popular app used for drawing. It is among the best free drawing apps on the market. It can create simple as well as complex designs quickly and efficiently. Sketchbook doodles, and sketches, and create your imagination very beautifully.
Features
- It offers natural pen interactions. The app facilitates the drawing so naturally that you will feel like running your hand on a physical canvas.
- The app offers plenty of brushes and other tools for precision.
- Being a free app, it includes all the basic features and some advanced features to work like a professional-grade digital drawing app.
- Exporting is no more an issue with Sketchbook. You can easily export files in different formats, including TIFF, BMP, JPG, and PNG, among others.
Compatibility
It is compatible with both Android and iOS. For your Android device, install it from the Google Play Store and for iPhone/iPad, download it from Apple App Store.
Pricing
It is a free app.
Review
The app is rated 4.8 out of 5 on the Apple Store and 4.0 on the Google Play Store. Users are happy with the app, but they expect some more features like clipping mask, liquify tool, and a few others.
Paper
Paper by Wetransfer is a great drawing app, standing as a strong contender among digital drawing apps. It is useful for both the perspective – personal and business. It supports journals, drawings, notes, sketches, and several other kinds of stuff. It is known to be the best combination of simplicity, usability, and functionality.
Features
- It offers a rich collection of responsive brushes.
- It instantly annotates photos and converts text into textured formatted lists.
- It also provides you with several starter books and very beautifully explains the best possible use of the tools.
- It facilitates everything from the lesson plan and mind mapping to product design and topography.
Compatibility
Paper is exclusively for iOS. Get it from the Apple App Store.
Pricing
It is a free tool but offers five in-app purchase options.
- Paper Pro at $11.99
- Paper Pro at $7.99
- Paper Credit at $1.99
- Paper Credit Bundle at $7.99
- Paper Credit Bundle at $12.99.
Reviews
The app is rated 4.6 out of 5 on the Apple App Store. Users highly appreciate it. Users enjoy the touch gestures in the app – they make workflow convenient.
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a more professional app that empowers users with precise tools. You can tailor the app for a wide range of applications. It offers a highly customizable user interface. You can even create your keyboard shortcuts and toolbar layouts. It provides you the flexibility of working in any document like picas, points, and pixels.
Features
- It offers a mixed-discipline design to let you choose among the export, pixel, and vector models.
- Furthermore, the One Affinity file format is highly compatible with all Affinity suite apps.
- Rich history facilitates – 8000 history steps.
- It offers real-time gradients and a live preview of the transformations in the correct Z-order.
- You can smoothly zoom the drawing beyond 1,000,000%. It is a vector-based app.
Compatibility
Affinity Designer works only on iOS. You can get it from the Apple App Store.
Pricing
Its pricing starts from around $21.99.
Reviews
People are highly satisfied with this app. It is rated 3.9 out of 5 on the Apple App Store. But few criticize their brush engine, while some find it difficult to use it initially. Apart from these, the app has garnered very positive reviews from users.
Adobe Fresco
It is among the best ranks of digital drawing apps. It offers users a combination of vector and pixel brushes. It even facilitates the ability to transfer the brushes, and other project imports from Adobe Draw and Adobe Sketch. It works with almost all the latest stylus and touch devices.
Features
- Adobe Fresco offers you the world’s largest and most advanced selection of brushes.
- They have turned the essential illustration tool faster to work well with stylus and touch devices.
- The whole UI is customizable and also offers a work-in-full mode option to discard the distracting elements.
- Their best feature includes – unlimited layers. You can go as deep as you want with infinite layers.
Compatibility
Adobe Fresco works on iOS. You can download it from the Apple App Store.
Pricing
It is a free app with three in-app purchase options.
- Premium Features at $9.99
- Adobe Design Mobile Bundle at $14.99
- Adobe Design Mobile Bundle at $149.99.
Reviews
It is rated 4.7 out of 5 on the Apple app store. People are admiring the app. Several users from Procreate are shifting to Adobe Fresco.
Wrap Up
Almost all the drawing apps perform excellently and are the strongest contenders in the lists. But if you are a beginner and looking for a free drawing app then, Sketchbook will be the best option. In addition, Sketchbook is also an incredible drawing app for Android.
However, if you are a professional and looking for something faster and more efficient, then Adobe Fresco and Paper will work best. Furthermore, Procreate is also an amazing app at affordable prices.
Well, it is better to match the requirements with the offerings from the apps before jumping to the conclusion of choosing the best sketching and drawing app for your Android or iPhone.
