5 Android Applications For Illustrations - Mobile Application's For Drawing | Mobile Designer 101

(Illustration source: Pixabay)

With lot's of powerful graphic design software available with pc, graphic design and digital art was exclusive for pc owners. But now, with more and more powerful and feature-packed mobile devices that can run a quality design application that doesn't suc*, the medium is slowly tilting.

Tons of free and paid applications are available for installation in Google Play Store, and many artists are making use of these applications to create amazing digital artworks. They are not ditching pc and switching to a mobile device or a tablet, but they are making use of the easy to access handsets. 

As there are tons of applications available in play store it can be a bit intimidating. It's hard to choose the best ones with more useful tools. And to make it even harder, most applications are limited in what they can do, they won't give the artist much freedom. Most of them are made to perform certain FX.

So in this article, we list 5 Android applications for illustrations and digital art that don't suc*. The applications listed here are solely based on our experience using them. Following are the 5 application that we use and love for creating illustrations.

01. Autodesk  Sketchbook

Developers: Autodesk

Price: Free

Sketchbook is one "the" best drawing and illustrating application. Sketchbook is a raster graphics software developed by Autodesk. Autodesk introduced the Android version of Sketchbook in 2014. The android version is in addition to the pc versions of Sketchbook. The UI is almost similar to the pc version but optimized for small mobile screens. Sketchbook has huge collections of brushes and we can add even more custom brushes in addition to the existing ones. The predictive stroke option makes Sketchbook even more powerful than its competitors. Users can turn on predictive stroke option to create crisp and accurate strokes. With 5 levels of accuracy, this is a handy tool any artist can make use of.

You can install Autodesk Sketchbook from Google Play Store for free.

2. Adobe Photoshop Sketch 

Developers: Adobe
Price: Free

Adobe Photoshop Sketch is another excellent raster-based drawing application. Don't get confused by the "PhotoShop" term, it is not a mobile version of "Adobe PhotoShop" rather it's a drawing application though it has only fewer brushes than PhotoShop. But you can install custom brushes to Sketch using Adobe Capture. But the available brushes are really good and enough for concept sketching. When compared with Autodesk Sketchbook, PhotoShop Sketch lacks in the number of brushes available and the predictive stroke feature. Photoshop Sketch works great with Adobe Illustrator Draw app(which we will cover in this article)as they are both by Adobe, the file transfer between the applications are seamless.


You can install Adobe Photoshop Sketch from Google Play Store for free.

3. Adobe Illustrator Draw

Developers: Adobe

Price: Free

Adobe Illustrator as everybody knows is a vector-based PC graphic software from Adobe. Adobe Illustrator Draw is also a vector-based application but as the title says, it is also a drawing software. You can draw using the brushes in application just like you would in Autodesk Sketchbook and/or PhotoShop Sketch. But you draw in vector. Adobe Illustrator Draw is one of the best vector graphics application one can get in a mobile device. The brushes Draw has are really good to create great vector graphics.

Check out this time-lapse of creating a flat style illustration in Adobe Illustrator Draw from our YouTube channel. 

You can install Adobe Illustrator Draw from Google Play Store for free.

4. Infinite Design 

Developers: Infinite Studio Mobile 

Price: Free

Infinite design is also a vector graphics app just like Illustrator Draw, which lets you create beautiful designs on your mobile device. Infinite design with its more advanced tools and especially the ability to create 3D forms with a 3D perspective guidelines make it a true competitor to Illustrator Draw. The tools available with Infinite Design are not just some fancy settings that let you create a certain preset FX, these tools give you artistic freedom to create things you want to create. Infinite Design is a really handy tool for any art and illustration lover.

You can install Infinite Design from Google Play Store for free.

5. Ibis Paint X

Developers: Ibis Mobile Inc.

Price: Free and paid subscription.

Ibis paint X is a popular application among graphic artists. It has huge collections of brushes, texture sets and various other tools. You can install the free version of Ibis Paint X that comes with loads of ad and fewer tools or you can upgrade to the premium plan and get access to all the tools and without any ads. One thing that makes Ibis Paint X stand out is the community of artists who actually use it. There are plenty of users who can help you to fix your doubts about the application. Overall, Ibis Paint X is a really good application for creating digital illustrations. 

You can install Ibis Paint X from the Google Play Store.

So these are the 5 applications we currently use on a regular basis and absolutely love doing so. There are plenty of other applications that you can try which are not listed in this article. We made this list solely based on our experience using them.

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Cheers!