𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐮 @veru@gameliberty.club

Up until around 2 years ago, art programs for Android tablets were really ASS. So I have struggled ever since buying my S6 tab 4 years ago and it has discouraged me from even making art. They're in a much better place now, though! So here's some info of art programs I've tried for android, in order:

Ibis Paint
Krita
Medibang
Infinite Painter

Working on a tablet has its advantages and disadvantages in comparison to working on a Wacom or any other desktop tablet plugged into the PC.

For me personally, it's a lot more comfortable to do art on my bed and I feel more productive being comfortable. Also my medical conditions prevent me from being at my computer way too much, so I don't have much of a choice. lol
You aren't confined to a computer and can work on the go.

The disadvantage I've ran into is that some programs might struggle with optimization on all the different tablet models. You can experience lag that hinders smooth workflow or make it extremely frustrating to work in. The programs also may not be as powerful as the desktop variants, though some newer programs like Clip Studio and Krita for mobile seem to be 1:1.

I'll start with my favorite.

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, Infinite Painter's simple UI and workflow are perfect for me personally. The 1st screenshot is of landscape mode on Infinite Painter and the finished chibi face of my OC, which I will post fully sometime next month, as I'm waiting on some things to kinda "relaunch" my social medias and make them more art focused.

Very fun to work in, if it wasn't for the lag on my tablet when I hit many layers. If you are a more polished artist than me, you may not need 100+ layers like I do, though.
It's not a chore to switch tools either. The brush selection is simple imo and sadly I can't figure out their brush editor. What's there is really good already, though. I get overwhelmed if there's too many options available. There are some glitches when using masks that cause massive lag if you want to select and move some layers, so that also sucks.
If coming off Photoshop or CSP on desktop like me, it is very different and it takes getting used to. This program has some tutorials online but nowhere near the massive amount of support Clip Studio or Procreate has. This is a smaller studio, so updates and fixes can take a bit.

Next is Ibis Paint. I did do some works many years ago on Ibis Paint. I never liked it and using it felt like torture after mainly using Photoshop most of my life. It actually made me hate doing art! The UI was very cluttered and the filters were terrible to work with; I felt I had no control of how it would apply on the actual overall image. The layers would eat up so much of the screen, too. You also can't move the canvas while the layers are open.

You can see this in the 2nd screenshot. This is a very ancient character concept of the undead form of my OC, which I will re-adapt into his new moe and pudgier design at some point. I never finished the character sheet because I despised working on it in Ibis Paint so much lmao

However, one of my favorite JP artists uses Ibis Paint and I've seen some professional works done on this program. So I don't want it to seem like it's worthless just because I couldn't get used to working on it. It's popular in Japan and has a good amount of tutorials available.

I ended up uninstalling Medibang and I vaguely remember not liking the UI, either. Didn't test this one out much, sadly. It's one of the go-to Android programs, though. This has been around since I was trying Ibis Paint 4 years ago. I've seen many artists swear by this program.

When I tried Krita for mobile, it was in Beta and performed horribly and clunky. However, this has been fixed a lot in the last two years and many people I've seen on videos are recommending it as the free alternative to Clip Studio Paint. They have ported over the desktop version the way Clip Studio has but also made it more intuitive to utilize on tablets. Krita is also open source. It's the 3rd screenshot. Here's a link to the video it's from going over some art programs for Android; I felt it was an informative watch.

https://youtu.be/MdOoPRi_xlk

I also just found out about a new drawing app for Android called HiPaint. This is a Chinese "knockoff" of Procreate for Android and hey, it's apparently really damn good and since the devs of Procreate won't release their program on Android, this is definitely the closest thing in terms of the UI and features.

I've never tried Procreate but coming from Infinite Painter, the HiPaint UI is fantastic. I can see why people like Procreate now.
I tried some brushes on this. Not a big fan of the ink ones when I was doing fast doodles as the one I wanted to use felt laggy and there is some glitchyness when using the airbrush. The video I will link touches on these two points, too. The app is newer, so maybe that will be ironed out and some people report no glitches on their tablets for the airbrush. HiPaint is the last screenshot here and it basically looks 1:1 to Procreate and it really nails the small details of some of the Procreate features. The video I watched on it was very good, too.

https://youtu.be/PeIJGLkwLKU

As I want to keep everything consistent for when I'm able to work on my computer, I will still try to use the Clip Studio Paint mobile app and get used to it. Going to see into getting a Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. The screen is huge and will accommodate the CSP messy UI on mobile a bit better.

I have heard many mixed things about Procreate for the iPad. Some claim it's better than Clip Studio and the best art program created and others claim it's absolute garbage and a mess. However, I really don't want to buy a CRAPple iPad. Overall, most people recommend it despite me seeing a decent chunk of negative opinions. But since there is no Android version, I can't give it a shot.

Another video I sent to the Infinite Painter devs. The lag here is a lot worse and noticeable on the Elegos chibi face. It's actual torture to paint like this. 😭 The brush and zoom lag behind badly.

Somehow there is no lag if you switch to a folder with not many layers but if the overall document has a lot of layers, then the lag does follow to any folder.

Ran into a road block with my art now. The program I have been using called Infinite Painter is the best I have personally come across for Android tablets. The UI and the workflow is just chef's kiss.

Unfortunately, it lags horrendously if there are a lot of layers on my Samsung S6 tab. I have finished some chibi faces that each have around 100 layers (I suck and make a lot of changes) and the pen strokes and painting feel sluggish and awful.

I did forward some videos to the developers to see if it's an optimization issue or if I should upgrade to a S8+ tab now. But another problem to consider is that I don't experience this type of lag in the mobile version of Clip Studio Paint even with the same PSD test document I uploaded.
From what I heard, the Painter devs are a smaller studio so I don't expect a fix to this tbh. But if they can at least get back to me if a newer tablet may fix the issue, I may end up buying an S8 so I can keep using Painter.

Now I'm kinda forced to switch to CSP. I mean, this is the industry standard but their mobile app is locked away behind a subscription despite it being a one time purchase for the desktop program. Since I'm bed bound more often now, it's almost impossible for me to use my computer and tablet there. I'm trying a 🏴‍☠️ version of the program on my S6 tab but no clue if it actually functions as intended yet, since I took the 3 months free trial for now. If I can't pirate it, I won't pay for CSP's anti-consumer way of porting the program over to mobile and will have to deal with the Painter lag. Painter is a one time purchase.

It hurts my autism less to not have to work in multiple completely different programs. If my health ever improves, I will have to use CSP on my computer anyways. I never get good anything because I have to constantly switch with the softwares I'm working with.

The CSP UI is also horrendous and bloated. You can see it yourself in my video. I don't think this is optimized well for mobile devices at all. Unlike Infinite Painter's clean UI. I tried to de clutter it as best I could. I will have to get used to working with such clutter.

I'm slowly transitioning into an artfag as I don't know how badly my health will keep going and it looks like I may have to rely more on my creative endeavors in the future.

I organized my Opanchu Usagi stickers today! ✨

I'm still missing one from this set since I had accidentally ordered a duplicate and I shipped out my missing sticker over a month ago. Lets hope it gets here eventually!

ate so much strawberry ice cream sundae that it hallucinated me into a different dimension as I was laying in bed