Testing LEONARDO BETA - Digital Art Software

I'll explore the a beta of the new digital art software called, Leonardo for Windows and Mac. It has some interesting features, but does it stand out enough to compete with current art software? Join me as I demo the app for the first time while sharing my thoughts on it.

(DISCLAIMER: This is not a sponsored video. All opinions in this review are my own.)

MY DIGITAL ART & YOUTUBE GEAR:

DIGITAL ART COURSES:

WEBSITE:

DISCLAIMERS:
I earn revenue from affiliate links. All opinions presented are my own. In the event I am paid to promote a product, I will say so in the video or description.

[aaronrutten]

What do you think of Leonardo Beta? Is is the next best digital art app or just another mediocre painting program?

[crehive]

I'm an illustrator, cartoonist, and fine art painter new to digital art...and after a week, I'm loving it, started using Leonardo on my Surface Pro, and looking forward to a pleasant future with this great product, thank you.
it would be nice to have the ability to have a 'custom art box', to store favorite pens, brushes, that stay preset to size and color' and an option to make the top menu bar slimmer to give more drawing screen space on the drawing tablet.
I love the ability to preset page sizes, as this helps when doing books, templates that suit amazon books, etc std page templates would be nice, but for now, I set up a template then save it in the archive.

Thank Leonardo developers for the heart you put into this product, wishing you and all your product users and those who contribute to it a God-blessed future.

[ARTofESCAPE]

I bought Leonardo, definitely not an expert yet, but noticed that you can actually erase with any of the brushes just by holding down CTRL while stroking... plus the dedicated eraser. Also the marker behavior is intentionally set not to overlap as I am thinking he means it to be a tool for coloring in areas evenly. There are also more options than I initially thought for brush settings. I believe all the brushes are procedural so far... not positive, but I can see how they could be. I'm really going to be diving into it now so I can get a real understanding of its' capabilities.... then maybe I can contribute more intelligently. I think it was holding down "d" that let you resize brushes over the canvas. Oh and if I understand correctly, the pixelation during blending and such happens due to a temporary conversion of strokes to instructions to maintain stroke responsiveness and then the rendering of the instructions to pixels catches up. who knows what the final solutions will be though, but at least it doesn't seem to hang forever like some apps when trying to use some of the more complicated brushes. The developer previously wrote games, so I think his brain might be slightly more geared to trying to minimize how much of a resource hog different operations are. I'm pretty interested to see whee he takes things with Leonardo.

[onokas]

I really like sketching in Leonardo. I don't use it as much as photoshop for finished painting, but the drawing experience can't be beat. It's simplicity makes it good for tablet use (surface pro, etc). it is super fast as well, compared to Photoshop. This only heightens the feeling of sketching for me.

[zublits]

You'd get a lot more out of this application if you went through the basic tutorial videos on their website. It's a deceptively robust app. The complexity and control is there under the surface, but it's made a bit more opaque in the service of usability. For me it's the first time I've felt like an app was both intuitive and robust is the right combination. It's immediately accessible, but powerful enough under the hood to make it my go-to for 90% of my process. Photoshop is now relegated to finishing touches for me.

[eleanortaylor]

Very good review. This program has some potential, I think, but it needs better brushes. Have you tried Expresii? That is a new watercolor rendering program that is new also. It is interesting, but really lags on my computers because it has to render the watercolor effects.

[johnbates]

Just came across this app and gave the demo a go on my rather unused Surface Book 2 . Was concerned the pen would be off centre as in your test, but it was fine. Understand there's going to be a upgrade/release soon, so may get whilst the beta offer is available

[VanNelleX]

it's like mischief to me, gonna try it out because mischief is so outdated

[theheidicrockett]

Do I need to purchase this program in order to use an UGEE M1000L pad for writing simple teaching notes while teaching to an online class? It looks like it's $39 now, was thinking there must be some simple program that's free if I want to use it for only the above but maybe I'm wrong.

[davesigningout]

Seems you may as well go with Sketcbook Pro, unless you really need an infinite canvas. Or Rebelle 2 for realistic mediums. Those seem like much better picks to me for the cheaper end of art software. It's a pretty crowded market already and I don't see this offering anything that makes it a must have. Sketchbook Pro can make some kickass brushes, and has more features. Rebelle 2 watercolour beats all.

[epicleonartist]

How do you buy this??? On your computer