5 Free (and Really Good) Drawing & Painting Apps - 2023 EDITION

There are a lot of great drawing and painting apps out there for beginer artists all the way up to professionals. Which one you choose will depend on your preferences but there is something for everyone.

00:00 Intro
00:43 Ibis Paint X
02:39 Intro to Digital Art
03:36 Medibang Paint
07:14 Krita

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[slamotte]

I personally love Krita and IbisPantX. Ibis just added full on pixel art settings and i'm having so much fun experimenting with it! Krita also has a brush pack that came out recently and it looks identical to pencils, the closest I've ever seen.

[KoalaTulip]

Shame that Krita can't be on iPad because of Apple's weirdness about open source apps. I'd love to use it with the Apple Pencil.

[R_O_T_A]

For me, krita is the best app all the time for drawing and painting

[pauldog]

Krita was the first thing I touched and I found learning how to use it quite organic. I started with just am the brush and eraser, then filled things in with colour. Then learnt about layers and how to make good use of them sand have started getting into more advanced tools and means of shading etc. It's really been quite a delight to use, especially once I got past my first couple of comics

[PrivateLZG]

The devs of Krita are just incredible. The program is, in my opinion, the best of them and still gets regular feature updates that even improve the program more. Dang

[Buttercookie_Draws]

Ibis paint x is my go to app to use. I didn't like it at first but now I absolutely love it! The fun part is you can even import brushes made by other people, which is where i found my main brush :D

[ajwalker]

I'm totally ok with you updating previous videos! Please feel free to update as you see fit. Learning about the new apps I may have missed really helps. Thank you.

[BJbear]

Thanks for helping me narrow my choice drawing app down to Krita! I've used PT-SAI, OpenCanvas(still going in 2017), Sketchbook Pro, TegakiE(flash based), DA-Mural(flash based), and Adobe PS(class version 2012), and Blender(Before the suit by A-PS or somesuch).

[Jibily]

Krita's brush engine is so good.

It's by far my favorite. ... It doesn't try to be like any other art app, though, so it takes a minute to learn. But once you learn it, it's amazing. I recently switched to using an iPad primarily for drawing, and I miss Krita so much.

[dbweb.creative]

Thank you so much for including Light Brush!! Every painting app is of its own flavour, hopefully people may find features they like and what is comfortable for them.

[musingsofmessa]

I could listen to Brad talk about art a lot. Also, really love the little animated bits! 😊

I use ibisPaint X, and it's wonderful. Been using it for about a year or something like that - maybe 8 months. 🙂

[YughioZexle]

It’s honestly beyond me as to why Krita is so underrated
I had never heard of it until a couple weeks ago and I’ve been working a little bit every day to get and get the basics down
So far the learning curve isn’t actually that bad at all!

[cgtang]

I use Krita religiously for several years now. Both on my Windows laptop and Ubuntu pc. The brush engine is top notch and very customizable. Great for making your own brushes. Planning to ditch my pricey paperweight iPad Gen 6 and get a nice galaxy tab so I can use krita on the go.

[Manchineel_]

Thank you, I have been looking for an app for starting digital art but haven't found one that I am interested in, this will help me alot.

[omicron]

I had no idea FireAlpaca was Medibang! I used it for a little while while looking for an alternative to Paint Tool Sai and before discovering Krita. Great drawing app!

[yuukod]

Great video! I love Medibang - it’s the program that I primarily used on ipad before going to Clip Studio (bc its my main program on desktop and still has a better brush engine), I still use this program for very simple stuff now but it can do detailed stuff. For me, some of the brushes just weren’t nice for more detailed stuff.
I dont know if this changed but Medibang has a premium service now to remove the ads. It used to be one time buy to remove the ads. Its no longer like that. So if Ibis Paint is a one time not premium buy I’d say get it. It’s a way better experience without the ads in the way. And its worth it.

[lfd_fae]

I absolutely love krita and Ibis Paint X. I love this updated video of the free apps♥️

[kriiler]

Ive been using krita since 2017, and like I'm so used to it now that even though I do have photoshop from school, I still prefer krita. And krita has gotten better over the years, and got a lot more features and changes that I really like. Krita's 2d animation feature is one of THE best I've seen out of any FREE apps (no astericks). Not to mention that Krita has a pretty large brush library by itself without downloading other brush sets. It is unfortunate that Krita doesn't have a ipad/android tablet version, but at the same time I can't imagine having Krita's interface on such a small screen. I have an ipad/pencil, and I just got Procreate.

[Rye_Ch]

I honestly love Krita and even now that im way more into digital art and have much better equipment I cant ever see myself changing programs. Krita has the right amount of features and the right UI setup to give you everything you need without it being so unbearably overwhelming

[adeptgirl]

I wouldn't hold my breath for pressure sensitivity in Paint Dot Net, they've been promising it since I was in college. It's a great program for anything else, though, and good to see it make the list!

I use Fire Alpaca myself. Tried Medibang and it tried to railroad me into signing up for their cloud storage, which would be great for people who want to work on one project across multiple devices, but I tend to want my files where I can see them. FA does have an ad pop-up on loading but it's easy to close.