We’ve rounded up five fantastic illustration apps for you to try, as well as an array of devices to help with your artistic outpourings—for all budgets and levels of skill. From apps for quick sketches on your phone to sophisticated graphics tablets that turn each stroke into binary code, there’s no reason not to unleash your imagination and nurture a new artistic talent. All in all, you’ve got a lot of options. But before you part with any money, try to borrow a friend’s tablet or test out a graphics tablet in a store to work out the best approach for you. It really depends on the gear you’ve already got, how much money you’re willing to spend, and how seriously you take digital illustration.
The best apps for making digital art
Sketchbook
The app used to have paid tiers, but it made all of its features available for free in June 2021 when it became its own company. The platform is also available on Windows and macOS, so you can load it onto any of your gadgets and come up with impressive and realistic results. Sketchbook is free for Android, iOS, and iPadOS.
Procreate
Even in the packed field of drawing apps, Procreate stands out. It’s fast, powerful, and easy to pick up, with hundreds of highly customizable brush types to pick from and high-resolution canvases that let you get down to the tiniest of details. You can also create custom brushes of your own—with more than a hundred customizable settings, including texture, strength, and shape—if you need even more options. It also offers an intuitive drag-and-drop way to combine layers, a wide choice of filters you can slap over your work, and extra features like blurring. It’s no surprise that Apple itself once featured Procreate as one of the best iOS drawing apps, and it’s currently one of the most popular iPadOS apps for digital artists. The one downside is that there’s no stripped-down free version of the app—if you want to try it, you have no option but to pay $10. If you have the cash, you definitely won’t be disappointed. Procreate is $10 on iPadOS.
Artflow
Those are the basics, but where Artflow excels is in the way it simulates the dynamics and flow of real paintbrushes on screen. The app works with high-resolution canvases and pressure-sensitive styluses such as Samsung’s S Pen, giving you plenty of flexibility and control over your drawings. Artflow is free for Android, with a $6 Pro version.
Tayasui Sketches
For free, fun, beginner-friendly doodling on Android, iOS, and iPadOS, we’d recommend Tayasui Sketches. Although you can get extra tools and styles by paying extra, the free version alone is still very strong. This app is one of the easiest to just open up and start drawing with, thanks to the simple way that brushes, layers, and colors are arranged. Tayasui Sketches doesn’t have as many sophisticated filters or tools as some of its rivals. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create some wonderful pieces of digital art with the app, whether you’re aiming for a watercolor or a charcoal look. It also includes the option to import your own pictures if you’d like to use a pen-and-paper doodle as the foundation for your artwork. Tayasui Sketches is free for Android, iOS, and iPadOS, with Pro features starting at $6.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is still the No. 1 platform for digital artists, and it may be just the best platform out there whether you draw on an iPad or on a computer. Its main focus is photo editing, but it has such a breadth of brushes and tools that you can also use it for sketching and artwork. On the downside, you will have to pay a monthly subscription fee to use it, and Photoshop has a steep learning curve. Any artwork you see on billboards, in magazines, or on the web has probably been through Photoshop at some stage, which is a testament to how pervasive this program is. If you don’t want to pay right away, sign up for a 30-day free trial to explore everything it has to offer. During that window, you’ll be able to test out all the brushes, fills, gradients, selection options, and the new magic digital tweaking tools powered by artificial intelligence. Adobe Photoshop is $10 per month for Windows, macOS, and iPadOS.
