I saw that some people draw on their smartphones with their fingers and got curious. So I decided to check what it's like.
First of all. Space the final frontier matters. Smartphone format is clearly not my cup of Earl Grey tea.
Second. Fingers. I even got myself some cheap stylus, but it was still quite challenging not to have a thin-pointed ears tool.
Then we finally get to programs. I tried six and did five drawings, before choosing one for later (in case I feel myself inclined enough to some additional suffering).
Keep in mind that I haven’t studied these programs thoroughly, it was an ‘open, pick up any brush and start drawing’ experience.
AdobeDraw. I liked brushes (especially the cone one) and its simplicity, but I didn’t like the sensor response, the lack of canvas rotation and the necessity to start an Adobe account. Got too annoyed to do shadows on my Data sketch.
Autodesk SketchBook. Interesting. I was impressed by brushes that imitate traditional materials, but actually couldn’t find one that would be comfortable for me. At least Deanna Troi sketch got shadows.
MediBang Paint. Quite comfortable, has some advertisement on the free version, but it seems bearable. Has a customizable stabilizer. Unfortunately I found it out only after finishing my Geordi La Forge sketch that you may see above.
ibisPaint. It turned out to be much less handy than I expected. A lot of brushes on the free version are available only for some time and if you agree to watch advertisement. Once in a while it asks you, if you want to use them, while you’re just trying to draw with the rest ones. Advertisement at top of the screen was that annoying that I counted moments to finish Miles O’Brien sketch and get rid of this application.
InspirARTion. Simple and has interesting brushes, but they clearly showed me that we cannot work together.
ArtFlow. This program tries to force you logging in with the Google account every time you open it. At first the interface looked friendly, but in the end I realised that it isn’t quite so. The free version limits layers to three and ‘undo’ to six moves, and I haven’t found a comfortable brush here. This and the glowing point on the menu (similar to ‘there are unread messages‘ in messengers) that reminded about possibility to buy the full version of the program were my reasons why Tasha Yar sketch didn’t get shadows as well.
It was the last application I tried, before deciding that my choice by now is MediBang Paint.
