Android's 10 Best Drawing and Art Apps By Brad Colbow

This video is sponsored by Squarespace hello. How long has it been since I did a deep dive into Android apps I was looking. It has been a very long time, so that is what we're going to be doing today. We're going to be talking about my 10 favorite Android, drawing apps. Let's go hi, my name is Brad and I review tech for creative professionals, we're talking about designers and illustrators anybody who's ever said: I need to carve a life-size statue of Richard Simmons, more of them out there than you think. Usually I.

Don't do these in any particular order, but today, I'm feeling like I, need to get some angry comments up in here. How dare you spread a win about you, simpletons? Oh, I am ready for this number 10 Adobe Photoshop, sketch and Adobe Illustrator draw whoa, whoa hold on that's two apps. We can all count here: I'm breaking the rules already: okay, yeah, but I got a lump these together, because they're at the bottom of the list. Here these things are free, as in hey, kids have some free cookies free and they both have the Adobe brand name attached to them, and because of that, a lot of new people coming into drawing tablets understandably are going to gravitate towards these apps and I. Didn't include them on my last list and a lot of folks wondered why? How dare you exclude Adobe's apps, you simpleton, so why didn't I include them? I do not like them.

I just want something: that's like a digital sketch pad that doesn't need to do much. This can do that here. The interface is easy enough to understand. In fact, the interface is kind of nice, but it doesn't take you very long to run into the limitations here, for example, what I wanted to do with all of these samples is I, wanted to open up a sketch and finish the line work there and I couldn't even import an image into this app to use. As my sketch there's so many other things, you can't make selections, there's no fill tool.

If this was the first iteration of an app that just came out, I might give it a pass and say: hey the interface isn't so bad I can't wait until they add on the features and make this really useable, but it's not the first iteration these apps have been out for 5 years and, for all intents and purposes, they've been abandoned. So, let's move on at number 9. We were gonna talk about clover paint. There are a lot of folks out there who are big fans of this app, and I'm gonna. Be honest, I, don't like it ok! This is why I don't do these lists in order, because the first couple numbers I, always sound like a grumpy old man shouting at the clouds I promise gets better from here.

I am a sucker for good design, a well-designed app- and this unfortunately, is just not it. It's probably designed for a very specific drawing style, a drawing style. I, don't have a drawing style, I call good I, don't do good I do cartoons! This app dedicates a lot of screen real estate to things like the brushes over here. The color, swatches and parts of the screen are just completely underutilized and a lot of that cruft I guess takes up a lot of the space that you could use for actual drawing. It's also the only app on this list that involves a lot of Google searches to do really basic things.

I shouldn't have to search and watch a couple of videos and read through a PDF just to learn how to make a new layer in the end. I couldn't finish my drawing because I accidentally turned down these little icons and I have no idea how to turn them off, and I was just so tired of researching, so I moved on. So there's a lot that you could do here with this app a lot of people love it, but just know there is a pretty steep learning curve. Number eight is super brush. Okay, I'd like this app, it's fascinating, but it is a lot different from every other app on this list.

What it does is it turns your Android tablet into a drawing display for your windows. Computer, like a second monitor, but one that you can draw on. So it duplicates your screen and on it. You could draw in any Windows app since desktop apps tend to be more robust than Android apps. You can draw on things like clip, studio or Photoshop, really any app that windows can run.

Furthermore, you can then draw in it via your Android tablet. We've seen apps like this on the iPad, but this is the only one that I've liked and actually ever gotten to work properly on Android. The catch here is that there is some lag. It's not quite as natural as drawing on say a Wacom tablet or something that directly connects to your computer. But it's not bad, and might be worth checking out, see I told you, I can say nice things anyway.

Let's move on to number seven Chloe on sketch it's free, as in yo. Is that gum really free? This is a really new app I did a whole video on it just a few weeks back, I liked it. It still needs a couple key features to make it really great, but I think it's a good start, and it does the main things that it needs to do. I could import my image, move it into place. I could do my line, art I can add color quickly.

The big thing missing now is really the ability to adjust and modify the brushes. You, of course, can change the size of those brushes and the opacity of those brushes, but that's that's about it. You're stuck with whatever comes with the app I would love to dive into some of these brushes with more settings or import new brushes. Other people make. Hopefully they keep working on.

It adds that in down the road and as a bonus, unlike other free apps out there, this one's completely app free so, like I mentioned before I, don't like losing drawing room real estate on my tablet when ads are popping up on the screen or too much interface stuff. So that is a big benefit here. Alright, on the number six we're talking about an app called concepts, this app is free. Is it not really there's a demo mode, but it's free? If you want the good stuff you have to pay for it free, and I'm sorry, but unfortunately this is also subscription-based. Hey, don't shoot the messenger I'm, the messenger, don't shoot me! I haven't used this app since the original was available for the iPad.

It's got a really cool animated, color, picker, wheel, I. Think that's one of the defining elements of this app and as cool as it looked after a while I didn't really enjoy using it. All that much I mean it's fine, but I prefer a smaller, more traditional color picker. The free mode of this app was surprisingly robust. If you want to get all the brushes and really fiddle around, you do have to pay, but you can get a fair amount done before you hit that wall.

I bet a lot of folks are going to love this app because it's really well-designed the thing that held it back for me were the brushes we're a little touchy. I mean they picked up too much of my hand. Jitter! It's fine. If you have fast confident lines, I, don't I really wish. There was just a little of streamlining on those brushes number five we're talking about best paint which is free as in as long as you watch these ads.

It's free- and this is where it gets hard to start ranking things. Everything from here on out is gonna, be a pretty good app. My favorite thing about AI be is how clean those brush lines are. It's great for inking, comic art and the stuff I like to create the brush. Stabilizer they have built in here is just perfect I like the way it feels it's hard to describe.

I just know it when I feel it. One thing is that I couldn't figure out how to pull in my line, art that I had saved to my tablet. There are ways to import materials. I was just too dumb to figure out how to do it. On my tablet, locally I be does have in-app purchases, but they won't the experience.

For example, you can pay to get all the brushes, or you can watch an ad and that's going to unlock your brush for several hours. I think what makes this kind of practice okay, at least in my book, is it gives you the option to watch the ad. Those ads aren't forced onto you. Although there are the ads running along the bottom of the screen does take up some space. Unfortunately, we're almost to my favorite Android drawing apps, but first I'd like to thank today's sponsor Squarespace.

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This might be the most robust app out here on Android, and it's perfect. If you use this on the desktop, it's going to be a pretty smooth transition for you. Not everything is here, but the most important stuff is sketchbook has a lot of tools that are designed to replicate traditional media, and it doesn't pretty solid job of it. They're also, some cool features like a perspective grid, a good text tool, some pretty robust layer options, I actually really like sketchbook on tablet and I. Think I, like it better on a tablet than I.

Do the desktop number 3 is Media, bang and Media. Bang is free, as in free you don't have to pay for it and there are no strings attached. It's just free I was torn between putting sketchbook or Betty bang. Here both have tools, you need to make great art, and these are probably the two apps most folks are going to move towards on Android, because there cheap and there aren't a lot of ads weighing them down. I, do like how many Bank has borrowed a lot from other apps, whether those are desktop or mobile apps.

In fact, this feels a lot like a desktop app I'm, a fan of having a lot of drawing space, and so Median does have a little too much interface in the way for me. But if you're coming from this kind of desktop interface, you're, probably going to feel right at home, number two is infinite, painter which you can download for free, but I would not personally consider this a free app, because you're going to want to have all the cool tools that come with the in-app purchases. Also, this one used to be number one on my list. It's perfect and over the last couple of years, I've seen more and more people talking about infinite painter and really giving it its due I think. The reason it's floated to number two for me personally is that the default brushes that I like some ink brushes and things like that they're only okay, I, don't like the feel of them exactly you can go out there and get new brushes, or you can modify these to make them more personal, make them their own.

So there is a lot of potential here. It's just so close between this and the number one app on my list. I think either way you go, you're going to be in good shape, like I said before, I think you're going to want to buy this full version. I wouldn't consider this a free app because it's just not fun to use without the tools, but once you get them, it is solid, and that brings us to number one. What is number one? It is art flow and again, just like the previous app, you can download it for free, but if you want to use it, I would not consider this a free, app, you're going to want all the tools you're going to want to unlock it.

Our flow has taken the top spot and I think. The reason why is it being the app here that most reminds me of procreate on the iPad one of my favorite drawing apps. It doesn't have every feature Under the Sun, but it has all the features that I need to do the stuff that I love to do, and it tends to stay out of my way and not get too complicated. You have the ability to pull an artwork there's some selection tools, it's all here and like infinite painter, there's the ability to modify your brushes play with them and do all that fun stuff and make it your own. My only complaint with art flow is that I wish it used better hand, gestures, Median, infinite, painter, they've, stolen the hand gestures you find in iPad apps like two fingers to undo and things like that, and it really gets clumsy looking for that undo button after a while.

But that's really the only thing I hold against this app. So that is my list. I will say this if, if your brand new to Android, and you're used to working on a desktop, and you've been using Photoshop or maybe clip studio or something like that, you might come to this platform and think wow. These are missing a lot of the features that I'm looking for. That's definitely true, I, don't know if I would consider any of these I don't know pro level apps, where they're just completely fully featured like affinity designer on the iPad, for example, or even clip Studios available on the iPad.

Now, there 's's nothing that quite matches that, like that desktop experience, but if you're looking for a mobile drawing app for your tablet, these are good apps to look at. So if you have any comments or questions, or I missed your fav drawing you. Let me know down below in the comments. Thank you guys for watching, and I'll talk to you in a couple of dates. You.

Source : Brad Colbow