Maccast Members 2011.09.28 - iPad Drawing Apps
Links
V Intro
* I have always enjoyed drawing and sketching so consequentially I have purchased and played with a number of drawing apps for the iPad.
* In this episode I thought I'd share my thoughts on a couple of my favorites
V Procreate
* By Savage interactive. USD $4.99
* My favorite one for sketching and doodling
* Clean, simple basic controls
* Subtle sliders on the left to control brush size and opacity
* Undo and redo
V Brush, smudge/blend, eraser
* each has sophisticated brushes with grain, shape, dynamics, and plot
* all the elements can be controlled
* Can create your own brushes importing grain and shape patterns from the photo library
* Layer support
* Click and hold to sample colors
* Palette picker with 21 saved color slots
* Save to Photos or send to iTunes
* Share via email.
* Not super fancy, but works great
V Sketchbook Pro
* By Autodesk. USD $4.99
V A lot of control over tools and brushes
* Presets for pencils, brushes, technical pens, markers, air brush, and more
* Custom brushes and textures with patterns
* You can control just about every aspect of a brush
V Pop-up loop to quickly control brush size and opacity
* Activated by tapping a little "ring" at the bottom of the canvas
* slide vertically to control opacity and horizontally for brush size
* Side palettes that you can pin allow for 12 preset tools (left) and 30 preset colors (right)
* Press and hold to get a "loupe" to sample colors
* Pinch to zoom up to 2500%. Great for detail work and does nice anti-aliasing
* Layer and transparency support
V Built-in store, accessed from the "i" (info) screen
* Has a number of free brush sets
* Really cool set of fine art pencils (B, HB, 2H, F, etc.)
V Sharing
* Photos, iTunes, Flickr, Facebook, Dropbox, Email, Print
V I like Sketchbook, but sometime feel like my skills are a bit under it's capabilities.
* Feels like it's more for the professional artist
* Has a steeper learning curve maybe, but lots of power in there too.
V ArtRage
* By ArtRage USD $4.99
* This is one of my favorite drawing apps on the Mac
V it has an amazing set of brushes and tools
* Pens, pencils, palette knife, paint tube, roller
V Where it excels to me is in the texture and behavior of the materials
* Watercolors that react and behave like the real thing
* Work with wet and dry paints
* Blending
* Drop blobs of paint and push then around with the palette knife
V Call kinds of canvas textures
* Canvas, Watercolor Paper, Rough paper, smooth paper
V Many of the tools have preset parameters to give different effects
* Watercolor brush has, Just water, Wet on Wet, Unclean brush, etc
* Can also customize of course using settings sliders.
V Like the desktop version palettes and tools disappear out of the way as your brush gets near them
* Collapse tool and color palette into the corners
* Has the ability to add an image as a background, but can also "pin" reference images to your canvas
* Support for layers, color swatch presets, can zoom up to 800%
V Sharing
* Photos, Email, iTunes, and Print
V Drawing Pad
* By Darren Murtha Design. USD $1.99
V This one is more kid oriented, but just fun
* Not a whole lot of fine control over your tools
* Does offer 2 different size paintbrushes
* No zooming
V Has a large library of preset materials and tools
* Paint brushes, colored pencils, crayons, pens, stamps, papers, stickers
* They are presented in a neat "drawer" that mimics a physical drawer.
* Stickers can be rotated scaled and locked or stamped in place
* Store where you can buy coloring books for $0.99 each. Can be locked out in settings.
V Share
* Photos, Twitter, Facebook, Email, Print
V Remote Palette
* By Dare Digital. USD $0.99
* Universal app, and that's important.
* You can use it stand alone, but really designed to be paired with an iPhone or iPod Touch
* 4 brushes and 23 preset colors, no customization
* Pair over bluetooth to wi-fi and the iPhone or iPod acts as the Palette with your colors and controls and then the iPad is purely a canvas
* Also has a "Finger Paint" mode with coloring book pages to start from.
* Only saves to Photos