iPad App review: Procreate - sketch, paint, create.

Of the three art apps that I said I was going to review, this one is what I believe the most complex in what it enables you to do - use layers and fine tune the tools and mediums that you have to use - but now that I have used the others one a little bit, I firmly believe that it is the best of all and I don't even mean this with regard to experience of the artist using. I mean with regard to how well it functions and how intuitive the overall design and navigation seems to be. The Artrage and Art Set just seem clunkier compared to Procreate. *shrug*

Right now I am working on a bit of a personal endeavor with the help of my church and local community and I have been putting off working on some of the things I need to do for it for a good while now. Well, tonight, with the help of Procreate, I finally got off my duff and did a little bit of what has been hanging over my head. Below is something I whipped up in Procreate.

Again, I did not use the Sensu to make this - didn't even use the stylus end even - but rather just my finger pad. Ignore all of that for a minute though. Instead, focus on some of the different things that I have in what I made above.

While the patches/swatches of color underneath the lettering look like pastel, they were actually paint and of a brush setting with oil paint that I feel like was really natural looking. (Can't remember the setting or brush but just trust me.) I also used ink pen of different kinds and tips AND a pattern tool that gave me that awesome planked wood grain background. Maybe I'm easily impressed but I just LOVED that pattern tool. It took me just a few quick swipes and *voila* there was a wood plank wall!

I feel like the marks that you make in Procreate are just so much more accurate and the action of making the marks - meaning the responsiveness of the touch screen in the Procreate program - is just so much faster than Art set or Artrage. That alone made me love Procreate better. And with me loving it this much even with doing just finger swiping, I can only imagine how much better it might be using the Sensu - either the brush or stylus end.

Procreate is $4.99 in the app store but I think the app is so good that I would honestly pay even more than that. Even at the price it is, it's the most expensive of all of the apps I have reviewed so far - well, not Art Authority but I mean the art studio ones - and I still feel like I would almost be willing to pay as much as $10 for it. Seriously. I think it's that good.

So, after this review and the last one, I have about three more that I still plan on doing - Art Set, Auryn Ink, and SketchbookX. I might do a 3D app but haven't decided yet. I kind of made a little bit of a personal rule that I wouldn't do any 3D apps but I might have to break that because I am so curious.