App of the week...Procreate by Savage Interactive

My iPad odyssey continues! Every day this thing sinks itself deeper into my psyche. It has ceased to be like an extra limb and is now more like an extra lung- I get short of breath when it's not near me...

..and the other connects directly to your iPad!

I've got a whole suite of apps on there right now, some of which I've discussed before, but I wanted to highlight an app that I am finding is just awesome. Procreate .

Procreate is one of many art apps that are available on the iPad, and one that hasn't been much talked about compared to Brushes, Inspire Pro or Autodesk Sketchbook. 

Colour picking and swatches are easy

However, I think that it easily knocks the other apps out of the park. Produced by Aussie outfit Savage Interactive, procreate has really cracked the balance of an intuitive and uncluttered GUI and remarkable performance. It offers a zero lag brush stroke interface, supports up to 16 layers with multiple blending modes, has a powerful and totally user editable brush engine, and 100 undo/redo states. That's on an iPad. With PSD layered output. Oh, and its canvas is larger than an HD blueray screen.

Photoshop layer effects, and more undo states than CS3 had as default?!?

What voodoo has been used to achieve this, I don't know. What I don't get is the lack of buzz I've seen around this app. It really is amazing what they have achieved. It's not even processor hungry, as I've had it runnning alongside music and games, plus browser and goodReader, no trouble. The brush engine supports paint loading and wetness sliders as well as the more common dynamics, and the company website has an excellent user guide, some free brush alphas and a burgeoning but enthusiastic community. The GUI handles portrait and landscape options and can be switched for left handed users to display on the opposite side of the screen.

When toying around with it, the responsiveness of the app was stunning- it felt like working with a marker pen on smooth paper. All of the tools felt really natural, and it "just works" to quote a famous wise man. The app is intended for drawing and painting; those wanting complex line guides, lasso tools etc. look elsewhere (Sketchbook Pro, most likely) but for those who just want to knock out art, it's damn near flawless. That configurable brush engine is probably the most exciting thing for power users, allowing the kind of brush dynamics Photoshop does so well. The app also supports any images you ant to bring in, so scanned sketches, photos or stock images as canvases are all options.

That responsiveness I mentioned extends to the dev team who have a "+1" system on their forums to gauge user interest in new options, and tracking through the posts, it is possible to see voted options that are now a part of the main app. 

Haibo Zhu finger painted this in Procreate.
You may now hate/admire, depending on mental state...

If you are at all interested in using the iPad as a digital sketchbook, this should be an auto include  app. Did I mention it's also one of the cheapest art apps available?

While at it, check out Will Terry's new site folio academy, as he has recorded an excellent tutorial series about painting and illustration, including one about iPad painting, and his artwork and dedication to teaching is lovely as well. And his tutorials are about 20 times cheaper than Bobby Chiu over on schoolism...as long as you can cope with Will's friendly, bearded face looming out of the screen like an avuncular moon, that is. Seriously, check out his vids for kids on YouTube. Terrifying genius.

Lovely lovely Will Terry- self portrait, face shown to scale.

I hope to be posting some iPad artwork in the near future, so keep 'em peeled for my half formed efforts!

~P~