Rating art programs
As many of you can tell, I am mainly a digital artist. Although I do explore traditional mediums, I tend to stick with digital art since it is the most convenient for me. I have tried a few different types of art programs and I am now here to just rate them.
I think it would be a good idea to go chronologically. I will be rating these art programs:
Medibang Paint (both IOS and Laptop)
Ibis Paint X
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Procreate
First off: Medibang Paint
Overall rating: ★★★★✩
I started first with the iPad version of the application back in grade 6, so I will first talk about that version. I think, as a starting drawing program, it was actually quite good. It was a bit hard to navigate at first but the learning curve wasn’t too large.
I find the iPad version a bit more work to deal with as I am left-handed so it definitely affected the way I drew. I think my favorite part of the program was the fill bucket tool. It is definitely very useful when drawing things with line art since it just fills in based on the whole canvas and not a single layer. It saves a lot of time.
The laptop version was a bit easier for me to deal with as I had a laptop that came with a stylus that allowed me to draw directly onto the screen. At the time, I did not have an iPad stylus so there was absolutely no pen pressure on the iPad. However, with the laptop version, I was able to draw just like how I would on an iPad, just this time I actually had a stylus with pen pressure. It make my line art much prettier and allowed me to spend less time drawing everything.
I personally have an attachment to this program as it was my first digital art program and also the program that I have used the longest.
Second: Ibis Paint X
Overall rating: ★★★✩✩
This was the drawing program I got on my phone because Medibang’s interface was not very phone screen size appropriate. It made everything impossible to look for and use so instead I switched over to Ibis Paint X. Overall the program wasn’t too bad, it was pretty easy to use and there wasn’t much of a learning curve.
I personally couldn’t deal with the selection feature or the fill bucket feature on this app though, it was a bit frustrating for me to use. I did love the symmetry ruler and materials function though, I found those to be quite useful and fun to play with. I also really enjoyed the number of different brushes that were on the app. The app itself is not bad at all, I just think I didn’t like it since it was on my phone and my phone screen was way too small for me to draw on. For all Ibis Paint X users out there, I respect and fear you.
Third: Adobe Photoshop
Overall rating: ★★✩✩✩
The program in itself is quite similar to Medibang in my opinion. It is not that hard to use, there are just so many features. I did have to download a lot of brushes to draw with. I will say, this is definitely not a drawing app, I don’t think I will ever do an actual full drawing using this since it is just so much work to use. The worst part about this is that it crashes my computer. So many times, I hate using photoshop but I also think it is because of how bad the school computer is.
Would I recommend it? Yeah probably, it is an industry standard for a reason. Will I actually use it to draw? Absolutely not.
Fourth: Adobe Illustrator
Overall rating: ★★★✩✩
I am not sure if I can count Illustrator as an art program but I am rating it anyways. I think this program took me a little bit to understand, mainly because it was vector based so it was different than what I usually work with. Once again, I don’t use Adobe applications to do actual drawings most of the time. I do find this quite useful when I need to draw flat images and I like the feature where you can edit the lines. The text function here is also quite fun to work with.
Sadly, this program is not designed to be “sketched” in or anything but it is quite fun to play with. If you do plan to do a full drawing in Illustrator, maybe draw something on paper or another program and import it as a background instead.
Lastly: Procreate
Overall rating: ★★★★✩
I am absolutely biased here. I am currently using Procreate to do basically all my drawings. I love the program it is so easy to use. One of my favorite features is the timelapse feature since I can watch myself create the drawing and it is always such a joy to see my own progress.
It was a bit hard to start with, especially since I was so used to Medibang. I didn’t understand the color picker function but now that I got used to it, I think it is quite fun.
My art style has definitely shifted to a more “painterly” style since using the program as I did not know how to use the fill tool properly. Eventually, I figured out how to use line art in the program (hint: try out the reference feature). I like the variety of basic brushes that the program comes with and I also enjoy how easy it is just to download new ones from the internet.
The only thing I dislike about this program is the brush size feature. It is so hard to use I don’t understand why size “1%” can be like 5 different sizes. Obviously, the save brush size feature is extremely helpful but it is just so hard to understand sometimes. I just gave up at one point, there's a reason my art doesn’t do line art anymore.
And that is all! I might change my blog posting schedule to biweekly only because I don’t have much to write about so… See you in 2 weeks!
