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Please recommend a Drawing & Animation app for iPad
Hi
I know there are at least a few of you here who are into visual arts.
My 10 yr old son is becoming increasingly interested in digital art (he already has books full of pen and pencil drawings), especially with the possibility of being able to animate stuff.
I have a 3rd party apple-type pen and he has tried out a few of the basic free drawing apps but I respect the opinions of forum members and am keen to hear what you would recommend.
Ideally I’d like one app that is easy to learn but also powerful enough that he won’t quickly outgrow it, that can do drawing as well as animation.
It would be even better if it is also available on macOS.
I am no visual artist myself so this is a new world to me!
Thanks
Comments
Procreate is the leading drawing and painting app on iOS.
Although personally I’m really partial to Sketchbook.
Procreate - it can do both drawing and animation.
I think for kids (and not only) something like Realistic Paint Studio would be a really fun app for drawing, painting. It doesn't do animation but the tools there, the whole UI and the workflow have a more natural medium kind of aproach there.
+1 Procreate
Callipeg. It’s more suited specifically for animation on iPad.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/callipeg/id1456172656
But yes, Procreate is also not bad.
Procreate is excellent, especially from the reviews but I haven't used it.
For animations, definitely Flip-a-clip. It even has an excellent beginner tutorial on the principles of animation.
Touch Retouch is an excellent tool to erase components off real life photos. It saves the headache of mastering Photoshop for a simple task.
I personally use OneNote for sketching because I can view it on multiple devices.
Looom is well worth a look, very immediate
Another vote for Procreate, top 2d art program and you can do simple animations with it too.
Thanks for the suggestions so far. Procreate looks excellent but a shame it’s only iOS, although that’s not a huge issue.
Sketchbook and Callipeg also look good.
I presume I can use a 3rd party Apple Pencil with any of these apps as it’s just a fingertip replacement?
Or do you really need a proper Apple Pencil to get really life-like effects?
If you wanted something multi-platform, Affinity makes excellent apps. That said, you'd have to purchase it for both platforms...iOS and Mac OS.
I have Affinity Photo on Mac and iPad.
I presume you’re talking about Affinity Designer?
This looks like a graphic design app as opposed to drawing/animating.
The Apple Pencil is definitely important as a finger and finger like stylus do not have pressure sensitivity. I had several different third party stylus and one bluetooth wacom stylus with pressure sensitivity in particular that wasnt too bad but it is now discontinued. Most third party ones really dont cut it though, the pencil is a must in my mind.
Yeah, I wouldn’t mess about with anything but the Apple pencil after trying various alternatives - there’s some really clever stuff going on with the tip sensor that I just love for drawing in a way that I’ve never had for even top of the line Wacom gear…
The apps mentioned, Looom, Callipeg and Procreate are all excellent. I’d say that even though Callipeg is subscription, it’s a pretty good yearly deal, or lifetime if you feel up to it, and the developers seem determined to make it the standard iOS animation system…
For anims
Stop Motion Studio
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/stop-motion-studio/id441651297
Sketches is worth a look too.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tayasui-sketches/id641900855
As for Affinity designer being a design application rather than a Drawing app. Having a decent vector app in your aresenal is very handy for animation workflows as it can export SVG (scalable vector graphics) files, which are the lingua franca of animation packages (especially on the desktop).
Alight Motion is iOS’s version of After Effects and it can use SVG sourch material to great effect.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/alight-motion/id1459833443
I would expect Adobe to bring Animate to iPadOS at some point. And there’s a lot of community pressure for Moho to be made available on mobile platforms.
https://moho.lostmarble.com/pages/features
You definitely want the Apple Pencil for drawing.
Procreate is the one. Don't think twice. And you can export to formats that are compatible with Photoshop
Drawing: Procreate is number one and you can animate too, but, if you want to be more serious about animation: Callipeg is your answer. Both apps are very price worthy if not even cheap for what you get. Good luck!
(Affinity Photo not Designer - mentioned above.)
None of the programs require the Apple Pencil, but if you want precision it's better than a finger.
Like I said above, Procreate is a good all purpose app for art and some animation. It is not specifically geared to doing heavy animation work. Callipeg is more in that vein.
Can I briefly, and politely, hijack this thread to ask if there’s anyone here who knows about photos and video ( specifically stop-motion animation) on iPad please? I have a problem that I cannot solve. Maybe DM me so we don’t divert the thread away from the original question? Speaking of which, +1 for Procreate!
Thanks folks
I've dabbled with Rough Animator for animating. The GUI is shite, but the functionality is decent. Then again, I haven't animated in 3 or so years, because it's a lot of work when I could be working on music instead.
It's only $4.99, which is less expensive than an overpriced latte from Starbucks.
ProCreate is the de facto art app on iOS, and now it seems I can even paint on 3D models with the 5.2 update! 😳 And it's still only $9.99, which is the best bang for your buck. It can also do its own form of animation as well, although it's not as easy to pick up as Rough Animator is.
You'll eventually want to get an Apple Pencil to use with both apps (although be sure to pick out the correct one for which iPad model your son uses), but the third party stylus should be fine for beginners. You just won't get the same pristine results with it like you would with an Apple Pencil.
Cheers.
AI bot rooting for a slightly crappy looking AI subscription app?
procreate dreams
ToonSquid
ProCreate is still perfect for drawing, but @GRiker 's suggestion of ToonSquid is a solid choice. Better than Rough Animator and ProCreate Dreams. Has more features than both of those.