Unleash Your Creativity: The Best PaperColor Alternatives for Digital Art
PaperColor is a fantastic painting application, perfect for mimicking real brushstrokes and unleashing your inner artist on your phone or tablet. Its intuitive interface and diverse brush styles make it a go-to for many. However, for various reasons, you might be seeking a PaperColor alternative that better suits your specific artistic workflow, preferred platform, or advanced feature requirements. This guide will explore top-tier digital painting and drawing applications that offer similar or even enhanced capabilities.
Top PaperColor Alternatives
Whether you're a professional artist, a budding enthusiast, or simply looking for a new creative outlet, these alternatives to PaperColor offer a wide range of tools and functionalities to help you create stunning digital artwork. Dive in to discover your next favorite painting app!
Krita
Krita is a powerful, professional, and open-source raster graphics editor, making it an excellent PaperColor alternative for those seeking advanced digital painting and sketching tools. Available across Free, Open Source, Mac, Windows, Linux, Android Tablet, and PortableApps.com, Krita offers extensive features like digital drawing, animation (including frame-by-frame and keyframe), advanced brush settings, smooth lines, and robust support for Wacom Tablets. Its focus on digital painting, lightweight nature, and comprehensive layer manipulation make it ideal for serious artists.
Autodesk SketchBook
Autodesk SketchBook is a drawing software known for its unobtrusive user interface and powerful drawing engine, making it a compelling PaperColor alternative for both beginners and seasoned artists. Available on Freemium, Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, Windows S, Android Tablet, and iPad, it features extensive texture for brushes, advanced brush settings, color blending, and support for layers. Its focus on sketching, image editing, and tablet pressure sensitivity, along with Wacom Tablet support, provides a versatile drawing experience.
MediBang Paint
MediBang Paint is a lightweight software designed for illustration and creating comic books, a great PaperColor alternative for artists focusing on comics and manga. It's available on Freemium, Mac, Windows, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, and iPad. Key features include multi-choice and blending brushes, frame-by-frame animation, pen pressure, and alpha lock. Its strengths lie in comic and comic templates, custom brush creation, unlimited layers, and tablet pressure sensitivity, along with Wacom Tablet support, making it highly versatile for various digital art forms.
Clip Studio Paint
Clip Studio Paint, formerly Manga Studio, is a robust Commercial software for Mac and Windows, ideal as a PaperColor alternative for professional comic and manga artists. It offers extensive features such as customizable tools, optimal performance, texture for brushes, and vector graphic support. Its built-in 3D model viewer, cloud sync, keyframe animation, natural media painting, and open PSD file support make it a comprehensive tool for complex digital art projects, with strong tablet pressure sensitivity and Wacom Tablet support.
Procreate
Procreate is a professional digital drawing and painting application exclusively for iPad and iPhone (Pocket version), making it an excellent PaperColor alternative for Apple ecosystem users. This Commercial software supports Apple Pencil, features extensive texture for brushes, offers digital-painting focused tools, and provides animation capabilities. With features like custom brush creation, customizable interface, layer manipulation, and time-lapse recording, Procreate is highly optimized for touch screens and stylus input, providing a fluid and intuitive creative experience.
PaintTool SAI
PaintTool SAI is a high-quality, lightweight painting software for Windows, functioning as a superb PaperColor alternative for those prioritizing smooth lines and stable operation. This Commercial software offers full digitizer support, amazing anti-aliased paintings, and features such as color blending, 2D drawing, and layer support. Its advanced brush settings, alpha lock, curve manipulation, and vector-like strokes provide precise control, making it a favorite for line art and detailed illustrations, with robust pen pressure and tablet support.
FireAlpaca
FireAlpaca is a free image editor for Mac and Windows, serving as an accessible and user-friendly PaperColor alternative. It’s known for being beginner-friendly while still offering powerful features like support for layers, multi-choice brushes, and smooth lines. Its blending brushes and digital drawing capabilities make it a solid choice for those looking for a free yet effective tool for their digital art endeavors, complete with tablet support.
Milanote
Milanote is a unique Freemium Web-based application available on iPhone, iPad, and as Software as a Service (SaaS), offering a distinct approach as a PaperColor alternative for creative planning and organization. While not a traditional drawing app, it provides a canvas for collecting thoughts, research, and planning creative work. Its features include a vision board, freeform notes, mind map view, and real-time collaboration, making it ideal for artists who need to organize their ideas before diving into the drawing process.
Corel Painter
Corel Painter is a Commercial raster-based digital art application for Mac and Windows, revered for its ability to simulate traditional media with incredible accuracy, making it a powerful PaperColor alternative for serious digital painters. Its standout feature is paint simulation, offering a vast array of realistic brushes and textures. With robust drawing and sketching capabilities, Corel Painter allows artists to achieve the look and feel of traditional painting with the flexibility of digital tools.
Tayasui Sketches
Tayasui Sketches is a Freemium application available on Mac, Android, iPhone, Android Tablet, and iPad, offering a beautiful blend of simplicity and power, making it a charming PaperColor alternative. It boasts Apple Pencil support, automatic brightness dimming, and custom brush creation. Its distraction-free UI, support for layers, and advanced sketching tools provide an ideal canvas for intuitive and natural digital drawing, complete with support for styluses and Wacom Tablets.
Choosing the right digital art application depends entirely on your individual needs, skill level, and preferred platform. Whether you prioritize professional-grade features, open-source accessibility, or a seamless mobile experience, this list of PaperColor alternatives offers a diverse range of options. Explore each one to find the perfect fit for your creative journey!