The Verdict:- Is iPad Pro Good For Drawing?
The short answer for this question is yes, the iPad Pro is good for drawing. But it has some limitations, like the Apps features (compared to desktop applications), and how well it can integrate in your workflow, but as a stand-alone tool, it is very nice to have, especially with how it serves as a tablet computer in additional to being able to draw.
For more details on how I reached this verdict, read on :D
Looking for iPad Pro? Kindly find the latest iPad pro models in the following Amazon links:-
#CommissionsEarned
Quickly go to:-
- Reasons Why The Ipad Pro Is Good For Drawing
- Reasons Why The Ipad Pro Is Not That Good For Drawing
- Let’s Discuss Whether The Ipad Pro Is Good For Drawing & Creating Artworks
- Drawing Experience
- The Screen
- The Apple Pencil
- Battery Life
- Apps
- See For Yourself:- How Is The Ipad Pro Capable For Drawing
- And Finally
- See Also:-
Reasons Why The Ipad Pro Is Good For Drawing
- The iPad Pro is great for concepts & general sketching
- It is also great for practicing your drawing.
- The glass drawing surface is slippery, which can be a good thing if you don’t like graphics tablets with textures on it.
- It just works, the pressure & tilt sensitivity work like a charm.
- It is very portable compared to many other drawing devices.
Reasons Why The Ipad Pro Is Not That Good For Drawing
- The Apps are limited compared to their desktop counterparts.
- The Apple Pencil is sold separately, so even for those planning to get an iPad Pro, you will need to invest in it just to try drawing on it.
Let’s Discuss Whether The Ipad Pro Is Good For Drawing & Creating Artworks
To put it simply, there is no definitive answer to this question. The iPad Pro definitely works as a drawing tool, but giving how there are many aspects to consider when it comes to that, you are the best judge for it. In case you want a tablet & a way to draw at the same time, I say go for it, there is a chance it can improve in the future and even more capable apps will come out for it. If you want something guaranteed to use for professional work, then I pretty much advice you to get a Wacom Cintiq, or maybe Surface Pro, as the Cintiq is more designed for that kind of work, and both the Cintiq & Surface pro support desktop applications, which can create all sorts of things.
Drawing Experience
Unlike many graphics tablets nowadays, the drawing surface of iPad Pro is slippery, which can be good or bad based on your preferences. Users of older graphics tablets, like the Intuos 3, may actually like that, but it can make drawing some lines a bit tricky for some.
The pressure sensitivity of the iPad Pro is still not known, a key feature that allows artists to vary the thickness of strokes based on the amount of pressure they put on the pen. The same can be said about tilt sensitivity, which simulate how the strokes are varied based on the tilt of the pencil, but they are definitely there, and they work well.
When it comes to parallax, the iPad Pro doesn’t have that problem compared to the Cintiq. In Wacom Cintiq, parallax is a misalignment between the pen position & the stroke you draw. This misalignment is caused by the fact that a glass is separating the screen and the pen tip. Calibrating the Cintiq or pen display makes this problem goes away until you change the angle you look at the screen while drawing. Despite that, there is a chance you will have this problem near the edges of the screen.
The thick stylus nib of the Apple Pencil makes it a bit tricky to align you strokes, but it is still doable. While the iPad Pro supports palm rejection, which prevent your hand from accidentally activating touches from the palm of your hand while drawing, there are times when that won’t work at times. These are may not deal breaker issues for most people, but knowing about them before buying is better than doing so after that.
One of the interesting things I found about the iPad Pro, is that you can use it for tracing, which is nice for those whose most art creation consist of that (though that won’t help you be a good artist if that’s all you do).
The Screen
Choosing between the 12.9 inches & the 9.7 iPad Pros is kinda similar to choosing the size of a drawing pad. The big iPad Pro has a resolution of 2732 x 2048 retina display, while the smaller one has a lower resolution of 2048 X 1536.
One of the negative things about drawing with the iPad Pro is the reflective screen it has. While it certainly looks beautiful, its reflective surface makes it unsuitable to work outdoor or where there is a light that’s aimed directly at it, because under such conditions, it will reflect a lot of light, and seeing what is displayed on the screen will become harder (if you already own any iPad model, you know what that mean).
The Apple Pencil
The Apple pencil certainly looks & feel like a pencil. But despite it being called a pencil, there is no eraser at the back of it. So to put it in a funny way, it is pencil with no eraser, which makes me wonder why Apple hasn’t called it Apple Pen instead. Besides the lack of eraser, there is no buttons what so ever on the pencil, so if you are a Cintiq user, you will certainly miss undoing or switching to the eraser tool with these buttons.
The Apple pencil comes with one replacement nib, but you can buy replacement nibs, which comes in 4 nibs in each pack. If you are one of those who complain about nibs costs, this is way more expensive than Wacom’s nib pack, which contains 5 nibs each. It is also worth noting that the Apple Pencil is more expensive than Wacom’s own pens.
Battery Life
The battery life may be a bit irrelevant in a drawing device for some people, but for those who plan to take it with them all the time need to know how much the iPad Pro will last. Many people would require a drawing device to have at least 3+ hours of battery life if not 5+. According to this Trusted Reviews article, the iPad Pro can provide at least 5-6 hours of battery life under extensive use, and it can provide up to 10 hours under normal usage.
It is worth noting that the Apple pencil requires to be charged on its own. There are two ways to charge the Apple Pencil, you either plug the pencil to the charging port at the bottom of the iPad pro, or you uses the female-to-female lighting adapter that comes with it to charge it using a normal Lighting cable.
Apps
There are many applications with good features on them, like Procreate. But the apps are still not on the same level of desktop applications, but they certainly allow you to do a lot of things, especially if you plan to use iPad Pro as a stand-alone drawing device.
See For Yourself:- How Is The Ipad Pro Capable For Drawing
Here are some Youtube examples of drawing using the iPad Pro, just to show you what it can does.
If you want to see a quick video on how drawing works on the iPad pro. Keith Carter’s video does that in under one minute:-
Here is another video of an artwork creation using Procreate, one of the well-known art apps for the iPad Pro
The video is long, but it shows you a whole artwork creation on the iPad Pro:-
There are many other videos on Youtube in case you are curious to see the iPad pro in action in multiple ways.
And Finally
Some people say iPad Pro is better than the Cintiq, and while that’s true in some aspects, like parallax, but the overall drawing experience is not suitable for everyone. So depending on what you want to do, and what kind of workflow do you have. You may want to consider getting it or not.
I hope this article helped you decide whether is the iPad pro worth it for drawing. I hope to see you in another article.
Looking for iPad Pro? Kindly find the latest iPad pro models in the following Amazon links:-
#CommissionsEarned
