As an artist, drawing on paper in an old-fashioned way may seem simple and enjoyable, but it’s far from convenient. Drawing apps and illustrators are transforming the art from paper to digital sketches, making it more creative and intricate than ever before.
Today, artists have plenty of in-store tools and programs to create a professional-level art design without much effort and rigorous work.
With the advent of stylus and graphic tablets, artists have more control over swift hand movements allowing them to work interactively and add finer details to their artwork.
In this article, we will walk you through some of the best drawing apps available to help you decide which one suits best for you.
Here are our top picks for drawing apps in 2022, which you can use for your next art assignment.
Adobe Photoshop
There is a reason why Adobe Photoshop is notoriously popular and famous; no drawing app list can be complete without mentioning it. If you are an intermediate to a professional designer, Adobe Photoshop is undoubtedly the best pick.
It comes with abundant features and go-to tools to create and edit your work. Even if you are just starting out with drawing, all you need is a beginner drawing tablet and an easy application like Adobe Photoshop, which you can use to start drawing with beginner art skills.
However, since it was initially a photo processing tool, it has limitations in drawing illustrations or comic designs. The biggest cons of using Adobe, especially for beginners, is that you need to buy the subscribed version to use the drawing tools on your computer and the storage capacity is limited.
Clip Studio Paint
Clip Studio Paint offers a variety of selections for all styles of artwork. Even the schools use this application to teach graphic design courses cause of its numerous features and good drawing flexibility. Another unique advantage of using Clip Studio Paint is that it uses advanced AI technology to auto color your drawings and animations, making them look more natural in composition.
According to the many users, the app’s interface can be a bit daunting and overwhelming to tackle, but with some amount of customization, you can change the outlook as per your requirement. The only major drawback of using this application is that it does not have an option for audio support. Therefore, using external aid from another source can sometimes be challenging.
Krita
This free, open-source program is best for freelance artists. Even though it offers limited features and capabilities, it is good to create conceptual art and comic-style illustrations. You can customize your interface according to your work needs, and there are plenty of different brush engines for you to use. Krita may not be the most suited drawing app for seasoned artists, but it offers a professional-grade tool for everyone for free.
Adobe Illustrator
Unlike Photoshop, which creates raster graphics using pixels, Illustrator creates vector images. This application is best for users already accustomed to the Adobe family interface. Because of its multipurpose design, Adobe Illustrator can be used to make everything from logos to animated artwork.
It has arguably the easiest and most helpful interface among other drawing tools. It allows users to use the working space in whichever way is comfortable for them while fully controlling all the existing options.
Compared to the other programs, which only let you work on a single image at a time, Adobe Illustrator increases your productivity by using multiple artboards all at once. This offers you much more versatility when working on different multimedia while maintaining clear resolutions.
However, those unfamiliar with vector-based graphics have to go through several weeks of training to get comfortable with all the features that this platform has to offer. Also, for those working on images with dot-matrix data structure, Adobe Illustrator has very limited options.
CorelDRAW
Produced by a Canadian Company, Corel Draw is well known in the graphic designing industry. The software has enormous tools to generate stunning graphics with flawless precision. Like any other good drawing app, it lets you alter your design space and works on Windows and Mac.
Created in 1987, Corel Draw is the first graphic design tool to support vector graphic representations. It is the best-suited program for artists working on technical illustration because it provides optimum control of all the nodes and accurate curve management.
However, it comes with a few cons, which make it less popular than Photoshop and Illustrator. Even though it is very good for vector graphics creation, the print preview lacks quality. If you compare the color preview with Illustrator, you will notice that the Illustrator is much better at rendering print previews accurately.
Procreate
It is impressive to see how many artists rely on this app, as it works exceptionally well when it comes to drawing by hand. Procreate is exclusive to iPad Pro and only works with Apple Pencil. Your device’s performance can significantly impact your experience using the Procreate app, so you may want to take a look here to see the top ipads compatible with procreate to ensure you get the best user experience possible.
When you are finished with your hand drawings, you can easily export the file to any other graphic design program for heavy editing. For example, you can click the share button and choose PSD to create a Photoshop file, making things much easier for all the designers as they widely use Photoshop.
Procreate is unquestionably the best hand-drawn digital art tool, but it is only good for occasional graphic designing. So if you plan on using a lot of graphic design tools, another application will be more suitable for you.
Cinema 4D
Cinema 4D Abstract Modeling and Rendering in Octane Render is a course that teaches students how to use Cinema 4D and Octane Render to create abstract 3D models and graphics.
The course covers a variety of techniques and tools for creating and shaping abstract shapes, as well as how to apply materials and lighting to these models.
Students will also learn how to use Octane Render to create high-quality, photorealistic renderings of their abstract models. The course is suitable for students with some previous experience with 3D modeling and rendering, as well as those who are new to the field and want to learn more about abstract 3D design.
Overall, this course provides a comprehensive introduction to the world of abstract 3D modeling and rendering, and is a great way for students to learn how to use Cinema 4D and Octane Render to create stunning visual effects and graphics.
Click here if you wish to learn more about the course.
Conclusion
For beginners, it is crucial to keep in mind your drawing aims. There are loads of drawing apps and programs available, and each one has its distinctive features. So, setting preferences will help you choose the right software depending on the kind of artwork you want to create. Also, before you decide to purchase any of these apps, it is important to consider the price difference compared to the functionalities they offer.
We hope now that you have an idea of different kinds of drawing apps, each one having its pros and cons, you can easily select which one is best for you. So go ahead and create new digital drawings anytime you want by using the drawing apps above!