The iPad is one of the most versatile tools in the Apple world: it can serve as an extension of your mobile phone, a laptop replacement or simply a portable multimedia center. But one use it also has is through drawing applications on iPad, which allow us to enjoy our most artistic vein.
If you were not familiar with this functionality of the iPad and would like to know a little more about the subject, I’m sure this article is for you!
Do you need to invest a lot to use the iPad to draw?
You need an Apple Pencil to draw on an iPad
Fortunately, It is not necessary to make large investments to be able to use the iPad as a drawing tablet. Really, the only thing you should buy as such is an Apple Pencil or a quality alternative that you can have.
Not just any type of pencil will do if you want to obtain the best results, but you need one that is precise and preferably has different levels of pressure on the pencil, in order to simulate the effect that a real pencil would have.
A Apple Pencil It usually costs about 100 euros and obviously, it will give you the greatest compatibility with your device, but you can also find good quality clones for 1/3 of the price, so if you don’t have that amount of money it can work for you.
Who can benefit from drawing on an iPad?
Definitely, any professional who is enthusiastically or professionally dedicated (such as illustrators, cartoonists or graphic designers) digital drawing will benefit from drawing applications on iPad.
The high cost of graphics tablets for drawing, which exceed 1,000 euros for complete models, means that enthusiasts do not have access to these solutions, and for less than half that amount you can purchase an iPad with its pencil to get started.
But not only these types of artists can benefit. People who are dedicated to 3D modeling and design You can see the iPad as your great ally for sculpting three-dimensional models on the iPad, which is useful for creating 3D characters and objects.
People who are dedicated to image retouching They can also benefit from drawing applications on an iPad, since they would replace the mouse and keyboard with a much more natural tool such as the hand itself, also avoiding injuries that may appear due to the repeated use of the mouse as a work tool.
With everything we have seen, it is clear that the option of using an iPad with a pencil is a great option for all people who have design and creative jobs, who can also benefit from all the online collaboration tools that This tool opens up for us compared to the traditional tablet connected to the computer.
Some of the best apps for drawing on iPad
Procreate: a very powerful tool for drawing on iPad
Procreate uses a advanced paint engine which allows users to work with a wide variety of brushes and realistic effects, where users can create everything from detailed illustrations to oil paintings and digital watercolors, through a very simple to use user interface.
One of the great advantages of this solution is the possibility to customize the brushes with which we work to our liking, to ensure that they meet what we expect, which provides great flexibility and the possibility of achieving unique artistic styles.
Like computer applications like Photoshop, Procreate work on layers that can be combined, separated or deleted, making it easy to edit and organize elements in a composition.
In addition, it has a module aimed at animation that allows us will allow us to create animated sequences with our sketches and as icing on the cake, offers collaborative work with other artists natively from the app itself. For all these reasons, we recommend it as a great option to take into account.
Adobe Fresco: did you think that the creators of Photoshop were going to sit still?
Cool is Adobe’s answer to drawing applications on iPad, which has all the know-how of the organization in image editing applied in this magnificent iPad app.
This application offers a wide variety of brushes that precisely imitate traditional painting and drawing techniquessuch as watercolors, oil and pencils, allowing artists to achieve realistic and expressive results.
And precisely with that realism that we are talking about is where Adobe has emphasized, adding the live paint function, which allows us to mix colors in the same way as we would do with traditional painting, giving a more realistic appearance to our creations, as well as an animation module similar to that of Procreate and support for vector graphics.
In order to have more functionality, for Adobe Fresco the sky is the limit: this app offers access to a extensive library of brushes and additional resources via Creative Cloudwhich will allow you to expand your collection of tools and effects through the company’s repositories.
To download it, we advise you to do so through the link on Adobe’s own website that will refer you to the AppStore corresponding to your country.
Autodesk Sketchbook: the creators of Autocad were not going to be left out either
SketchBook is a popular digital drawing and painting application developed by Autodesk, the company known for creating the famous AutoCAD 3D modeling and architecture program.
This application is more art-oriented, offering us work on different merging layers with an intuitive and customizable interfacevery much on par with the other options we mentioned above.
Within the application itself We have a wide range of brushes and digital drawing tools to use, which will allow us to cover the needs of artists of different profiles without breaking a sweat.
Users can customize the SketchBook interface according to their preferences, placing the tools and palettes where they find it most convenient and allowing us to export our works in the most common image formats.
But without a doubt the strong point that SketchBook has compared to other alternatives is being an ideal complement for teaching and carrying out tutorials, since within the functions of the application we have the recording of strokes, which will allow us to show other people how we have made our drawing with precision.
And although we are aware that there are many other alternatives within the applications for drawing on iPad in the AppStore, we believe that with these three you have a more than interesting base to start discovering which one is yours.
Do you know of any other iPad art apps that you think work well? If so, don’t hesitate to leave it in the comments!
