Choosing the right app for the mobile art studio in your backpack

As tablets have advanced, many artists such as you or me are turning to the best Android tablets and phones out there as their weapon of choice for making digital artworks. Key to that is, of course, a great app to express yourself through. With so many out there though, how do you choose the right one? Well, hopefully, I can narrow down the choices a bit for you and share what I think are some of the best drawing apps available for your Android device.

These are some important features and factors to look out for when you are choosing a drawing app:

The price of an app is often going to be a deciding factor too, especially if you are a beginner just getting started. Thankfully, each app here is either completely free, partially free, or it gives you a decent trial period of the full version, so you can test for yourself what works best for you.

In case you are wondering, these apps were all tested on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. Released in the middle of 2020, it still holds up as a very competent little tablet for digital art today, and is great value for money.

With all that out of the way, let’s dive into the apps.

Originally developed by Autodesk, Sketchbook has become quite a popular choice for many. It's been my go-to drawing app on my phone for a while because of its clean, uncluttered, and easy-to-navigate interface. If this was your preferred app on your computer, you’ll be right at home using it on your mobile device too.

If you are looking for something that gives a similar drawing experience and feature packet as the iPad painting powerhouse Procreate, then this is one you definitely want to check out. It has a great selection of textured brushes that emulate traditional media, so if you are more of a painter, then I highly recommend Infinite Painter as one of the best drawing apps for Android.

Price: $10, but there’s a 7-day free full-access trial.

Clip Studio Paint is packed with features and has quickly become a popular alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop on PC. It has a really fair price for such an advanced piece of software, and is a great option for comic creators and even animators as well.

On tablets you’ll be getting the full package too.

Price: $1/m for phone, $5/m for tablet version, or one hour free each day.

You can get a 6-month free full-feature trial from the Galaxy Store though.

MediBang is another popular free option, particularly with new comic artists. Like Clip Studio Paint, it also has a large asset library to pull from. You can back up your work on the cloud and access it on your computer later as well. The mobile version is a little different from the desktop release. It's better adapted for small screens but still packed with tools.

Price: Free with ads. Starting at $3/m you gain additional features, increased cloud storage, and an ad-free experience.

Free, open-source, and rich in features, Krita is a well-loved digital art app. Designed primarily for computers, it has now been ported over to Android, as is, in its entirety for tablet users. As such, it’s better suited to working with a keyboard connected, allowing you to activate and switch between tools with keyboard shortcuts rather than touch gestures.

It’s still in early access beta, but so far it works exactly as I’d expect from the desktop version, and is also available for ChromeOS.

ArtFlow is another great app that doesn’t immediately bombard you with features in a busy interface. For that reason, it’s one I’m inclined to recommend for beginners and hobbyists. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s lacking the tools more advanced users will enjoy.

Price: Free, $6 one-off payment for the Pro version.

There aren’t many decent drawing apps that offer an infinite canvas. That’s what makes Concepts a great app for generating ideas and having them spread out over a single page. Think mind-mapping where Pinterest meets your actual sketchbook, so you can insert images, draw around them and make notes. With its full Copic color wheel, it feels like this was made with designers in mind.

Price: Free, $5/m full-feature subscription, $16 one-off for the Essentials pack, various other one-off purchase options.

Do you want to collaborate on drawings with your friends? Launched at Lightbox Expo in 2019, Magma Studio is a browser-based drawing app rather than a downloadable one. As such, you don’t get the range of tools that you would with something like Clip Studio Paint, but Magma Studio has something else quite unique: the shared canvas. You can host a canvas and invite your friends from all over the world to draw on it with you.

Price: Free. The $10/m Pro version gets you added features like textured brushes, larger canvas options, and unlimited cloud storage.

Draw online in Magma Studio.

Infinite Painter gives me the closest user experience to Procreate on the iPad, and feels equally powerful. Its minimal interface makes it a great option for both phones and tablets.

Clip Studio Paint is packed with features and quite a loaded interface, so it’s better suited for the larger screens on tablets and Chromebooks. You'll be quite comfortable using this as a straight fingers-and pen app, but you can also connect a keyboard and have at it just like you would on a desktop computer.

ArtFlow’s interface is wonderfully minimal, giving you the option to completely hide all the toolbars and have the full screen area to focus on your drawing. A double-tap to undo gesture is all that’s really missing here.

Often when people ask about finding a standalone device for digital art, it’s the iPad with Procreate that gets recommended. There’s a good reason for that, and I’m an enthusiastic Procreate user myself. It’s neat and intuitive design has made it accessible to beginners while still having a ton of advanced features packed in for more skilled users. It really isn’t the only option now though, and I’m quite excited by what’s available for Android. Samsung’s Galaxy S-series tablets with the included S-Pen in particular have become strong competitors, and whether you are a hobbyist or a professional, there are some great apps available for you to produce high quality work.

Outfit your new Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with an advanced screen protector to keep it safe and ensure consistent camera and fingerprint reader use.

Ryan is a practicing digital artist bouncing between his computer, mobile devices, and the occasional mural. You can also find this brush monkey penning about hardware, software, and art for video games over on DrawYourWeapon.com