Unleash Your Creativity: Top Draft Alternatives for Sketching on iPad and Beyond
Draft is a popular, straightforward sketch app for iPad, known for its simplicity and automatic saving feature. Available for $9.99 in the App Store, it offers a minimalist black canvas with white and red drawing options, and easy sharing via email or Campfire. While effective for quick sketches, many users seek a Draft alternative that offers more advanced features, broader platform support, or a different pricing model. This article explores the best sketching software that can serve as excellent replacements for Draft, catering to various artistic needs and preferences.
Top Draft Alternatives
Whether you're looking for free open-source options, cross-platform compatibility, or professional-grade tools, there's a sketching application out there perfect for you. Dive into our curated list to find your next go-to creative companion.
Krita
Krita is a professional, open-source raster graphics editor, making it an excellent free Draft alternative for serious digital artists. It offers advanced digital painting and sketching tools with a robust workflow, supporting Mac, Windows, Linux, Android Tablet, and PortableApps.com. Key features include digital drawing, animation, blending brushes, frame-by-frame animation, advanced brush settings, and extensive support for Wacom Tablets.
MyPaint
MyPaint is a fast, distraction-free, and easy painting tool, serving as a fantastic free and open-source Draft alternative. It's designed for digital artists and supports graphics tablets like Wacom, available on Mac, Windows, Linux, and PortableApps.com. Its standout features include an infinite canvas, color blending, drawing, fullscreen support, image editing, support for layers, and portability.
Autodesk SketchBook
Autodesk SketchBook is a drawing software that presents an unobtrusive user interface and a powerful drawing engine. As a freemium Draft alternative, it's available on Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, and iPad. It boasts features like texture for brushes, advanced brush settings, color blending, multi-choice brushes, support for layers, and excellent tablet pressure sensitivity, including Wacom support.
Corel Painter
Corel Painter is a commercial raster-based digital art application that accurately simulates traditional media, making it a powerful Draft alternative for artists seeking realistic painting experiences. Available for Mac and Windows, its key features include advanced paint simulation, conditional styles, drawing, and sketching capabilities, offering a comprehensive suite for digital art creation.
Tayasui Sketches
Tayasui Sketches offers a perfect blend of beauty, simplicity, and power, providing a unique Draft alternative, especially for iPad users. This freemium application is available on Mac, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, and iPad. It features Apple Pencil support, automatic brightness dimming, color blending, custom brush creation, support for layers, a distraction-free UI, and sketching tools, with support for styluses and Wacom Tablets.
Artrage
ArtRage is a lovely natural media painting and sketching program that serves as an excellent commercial Draft alternative for artists who appreciate traditional media simulation. Available on Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, and iPad, it supports 4K resolution, Apple Pencil, color blending, multi-choice brushes, multi-touch, offline work, texture painting, and Wacom Tablets, even loading/saving Photoshop files.
Seashore
Seashore is an open-source image editor specifically for Mac OS, making it a simple yet effective free Draft alternative for Mac users. It features gradients, textures, anti-aliasing for text and brush strokes, and supports multiple layers. While primarily an image editor, its sketching capabilities and real-time collaboration make it a viable option for quick creative work.
Artweaver
Artweaver is a freemium program for creative painting, offering all artistic effects needed for creative work. It's a Windows-exclusive Draft alternative that allows users to create sketches and boasts features like German language support, image editing, and portability. It's a solid choice for Windows users looking for a dedicated art application.
Leonardo
Leonardo aims to be the best painting application ever, offering an exceptional commercial Draft alternative for Windows and Windows S users. It features an infinite canvas, picture-in-picture mode, drawing, image editing, image processing, support for layers, pen pressure sensitivity, sketching, tablet support, and full compatibility with Wacom Tablets. Leonardo is designed for artists who demand precision and powerful tools.
Verve Painter
Verve Painter is a free Windows-based application that offers a unique approach to digital painting, making it an interesting Draft alternative. It's portable and focuses on vector painting, allowing for energetic and enthusiastic artistic expression. While less feature-rich than some other options, its unique painting engine provides a distinct creative experience for those looking to experiment.
Finding the perfect Draft alternative depends on your individual workflow, desired features, and budget. From free and open-source powerhouses like Krita to commercial suites like Corel Painter, and mobile-first apps like Autodesk SketchBook or Tayasui Sketches, there's a vast landscape of options to explore. We encourage you to try out a few and discover which one truly enhances your creative process.