The Apple Pencil isn’t a stylus, and if you’re at all artistically inclined, the $99 iPad Pro accessory is a fantastic way of getting your creations from your mind to the page. But although the Apple Pencil is capable of detecting the angle and orientation of how you’re holding it, plus the amount of pressure you’re applying, you still need to a canvas to shade in. Below are three of the best iPad Pro drawing apps you can use with an Apple Pencil.
Paper (Free)
Paper is a great sketching app for the iPad Pro, and the best part is that it’s free. Paper allows you to take notes with an Apple Pencil, annotate and edit on top of imported images and most importantly, draw to your heart’s content. Developed by FiftyThree, Paper comes with templated diagrams and charts and a variety of different brush strokes, including pen, paint brush, marker and pencil. You can also mix your colors with the app’s built-in color palette.
Forge (Free, With In-App Purchases)
Forge happens to be free as well, and includes ink, brush marker, airbrush and pencil drawing tools. The most exciting thing about Forge, however, is that it’s built on an iterative design concept, meaning that it’s a perfect app to create storyboards with. Sketches are easily copied to a new canvas and placed side-by-side one another, giving you a bird’s eye view at the tap of a button.
Procreate ($5.99)
As one redditor recently put it, Procreate is “truly something you'd expect paying around $80 for if it were on desktop.” Another redditor went even further, saying Procreate was “hands down the best drawing app in the App Store. Probably the closest thing to a photoshop alternative I've found for mobile too.” Procreate has layer support, as well as warping and skew tools, blending and curve manipulation features, and judging from the practically 5,000 reviews and 5-star rating, is well worth the money.
The Apple Pencil is currently listed at $99 on the Apple website, while the iPad Pro can be purchased from $599 to $1,029 for the 9.7-inch model, and $799 to $1,229 for the 12.9-inch model.
