10 Tools to Create Illustration in 2020 for Graphic Designers & Art Lovers

Illustration by Nahuel Bardi

Everything around us is the creation of art if seen with an artist’s eye. You can not decide its value in terms of money or anything else as art is a speculative term and a definition in its term. For instance, it is difficult to score a design which is liked by one and disliked by the other; it is hard to set standards for creating art because if there are rules in art, then it is not a work of art at all. When you can not express yourself in words, art and the artist is what gets you through.

So you see, art has a significant role in its own way. And if you are a graphic designer who creates scenes or shows what you wish to show people, or are an art lover, then these illustration tools will definitely help you in creating exclusive artwork. Read on to know about such tools in brief.

Illustration Tools

Here is a list of illustration tools which you can use to enhance your designs:

Procreate for iPad

It is an award-winning application which lends you the power to create designs, sketches, paintings and illustrations to grab everyone’s attention. It gives you a world which is your studio. The procreate app allows you to bring out your creativity with easy to use procedures. It has everything you need to design your artwork at any place you wish to. It comes with an entire library of features and amazing procreate brushes collection which can be used to lay beautiful creations. It offers a complete colour control to put your imagination into different designs. Procreate gives you a platform to work at your own pace with better and effective performance results. So, create the art that has the ability to move others.

Pros

1. Extra special FX to add that last finishing touch.
2. It has several updated features and tools like Brush Studio, Animation Assist etc.
3. It gives you full font control, power moves, complete colour control, customizable hand brushes etc.
4. It also gives you artistic superpowers to design in a professional studio.

Cons

1. It is for iPad users only.
2. It is a paid illustration tool.

Sketchbook

Sketchbook is an application which lets you form quick conceptual sketches and fully finished artwork. It gives access to powerful and fast creative sketching tools which is a vital part of creating a design. The better part is, all its features are now free to use. It provides a platform to experience superior drawing, capture ideas whenever it strikes you, refine sketches into illustrated art and a workplace environment which does not look like work at all.

Pros

1. It gives you real-life like drawing experience to let you draw without distractions.
2. It includes features like paper to digital in a snap which is available on all devices to capture your ideas whenever they strike.
3. You can use serious innovation tools which are familiar in the digital space.
4. The PSD is compatible with all the devices making it a designer’s best friend.
5. You have to subscribe only once to get the subscription for all devices.
6. It is free to use for educational purposes.

Cons

1. It asks for paid membership for the enterprise licence.
2. It may have a few bugs.

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe illustrator is the state of the art for illustrations. It gives a plethora of features like creating logos, typography, sketches, icons, or complex illustrations with the use of vector art. You can iconically work with any sizes and may include gorgeous topography. It has seamless alignments and pixel perfect shapes to provide a great designing experience. It comes with its own plugins which can add beauty to a blank webpage.

It also has new features like Creative Cloud which can be used both on Mac as well as on desktop. AI is easy to get started with when you find a suitable plan for yourself or you can begin with your free trial. It gives a platform to showcase and utilize the creativity for all. The top new features include path simplification, auto spell check and background save and export.

Pros

1. Its touch type tool is definitely a plus point.
2. It is very simple to operate, especially the Free Transform tool
3. It is supportable in both Mac and Windows.

Cons:

1. A little pricey to avail some of the best features of this tool.

Artrage

It is a realistic painting tool which allows you to create professional illustrations with the use of various textures and colour blending features. It comes with a complementary colour system, depth in the colour brush, several oil paint features, recordable actions and many more. It has varied versions which include ArtrageLite, Artrage for Android, Artrage for iOS and Artrage 6.

It provides a canvas for expressive and thick oils and watercolour, a sheet of paper with wax crayons and a sketchpad with sets of pencils. It is suitable to use for everyone to create art on your iPad, including amateurs to professionals, kids to adults. All you need is to simply put your tools on a shelf and bring out your creativity to design your imaginations.

Pros

1. It is supported on mobile as well as desktop devices.
2. The main aim is to create natural tools for an intuitive interface.
3. It can be used by both traditional and digital background users without learning any digital sketch and draw tactics.

Cons:

1. The features are not very professional.
2. The users may face a few bugs.

Wacom for Drawing

Wacom is a tool which gives you a platform to find a creative zone quickly irrespective of your designing level. If you are an accomplished designer or a beginner seeking applications to explore and enhance your designing, Wacom serves all your purposes when it comes to drawing.

It aims to provide the best services to create a creative world by inspiring and equipping people with innovative imaginations. It caters the needs of creative professionals, supports the discovery of creativity, helps share ideas, provides smart solutions for innovative technology and business issues etc.

Wacom helps you with selection and compatibility, exploring new features, tutorials and webinars, setup and use guide, warranty and repairs, account and registrations etc.

Pros

1. The products give the exact feeling of drawing in a sketchbook.
2. It gives the flexibility to work from any angle.
3. It is compatible with various devices.
4. The portable devices and products let you work from anywhere.

Cons

1. The tablet product may not suit the ones who have a handset on the keyboard.
2. You may have to pay high prices in order to avail these products.

Inkscape

It is a professional application which is ideal for those who love vector art and those graphic designers who use SVG file format. It is compatible to use in Windows, Linux, iOS as well. It serves for everyone whether you are in search to create and explore vector art for your blog or are a professional designer.

Inkscape is very easy to use when talked in terms of colouring, sketching or making illustrations. It makes files easy to read with the use of Ghost script extensions .EPS. The features include the tool to directly edit from the source code, keys to adjust screen pixels, edit clones on canvas, add gradients, fill the paint bucket with just one click and many more. It gives the users flexible drawing tools, broad file format compatibility, powerful texting tools and other added advantages to enhance the overall experience of the designers.

Pros

1. The app is absolutely free to use.
2. It has endless updates and features.
3. The bonus is the newly added effect tools.

Cons

1. The major cause of concern is its slow speed.

Tayasui Sketches

This app lets you sketch in a real like environment. It is one of the most realistic tools in the area of graphic designing and sketching. The realistic drawing tool helps you to design the most beautiful images.

It comes with wet watercolour tool, unlimited layers to make complex drawing easy, cloud sync which always has your back in times of any loss of data, acrylic brushes for those emulating illustrations, customizable patterns, gradient tools, colour mixing options and a showcase for the artists to inspire them more. It is available on both Mac and Android devices. It also comes in freemium and PRo versions for those who want more.

Pros:

1. The wide range of features is certainly the major reason to opt Tayasui.
2. Dozens of advanced features so as to satisfy every customer.
3. It gives the option for brush editor, smudge, pencil and enhanced stylus, moves and resizes, copy and paste, edit colours, add fonts, etc.

Cons:

1. The tools may give initial issues or newbies.
2. It may lack few of the required editing tools for which you will need to switch to premium membership.

Adobe Illustrator Draw

This is one of the various ranges of products brought to you by Adobe. The app deals in creativity and design, marketing and commerce, PDF and e-signatures and many more business solutions. Now you can draw any of your inspiration at any place you want. With Illustrator Draw, you can beautiful vector designs and lets your ideas turn into production-quality artwork.

Adobe Illustrator Draw offers exceptional drawing tools, allows you to send them further to Photoshop and Illustrator, publish to Behance, shape the integration settings, access to Adobe creative cloud libraries, built-in perspective and graphs grids, gives support to the latest drawing hardware as well. You can even create illustrations through your mobile devices and then edit the same in the Illustrator. It also lets you connect with the Creative Cloud space to enhance your designing and illustrations.

Pros :

1. It has a really helpful user interface.
2. It lets you create the file in a manageable size.
3. It is supported to work on any devices.
4. You can also print graphics and web graphics.

Cons :

1. You need to have the patience to use this tool.
2. It consumes a lot of space.

Painter Artist

Painterartist is a digital art and painting software which allows you to have access to the advanced interface settings, improved brush selector, new colour harmonies and many more. It is a painting software which creates a platform for serious artists by its custom-built features. It lets you make a natural transition to digital from a traditional one so as to take advantage of such tools. It certainly gives the users an unparalleled photo art experience with momentous results in return. It comes with a vast amount of customization and brushes capabilities. Use it for time-saving performance.

Pros:

1. It has an astonishing number of paintbrushes which include 900 plus brush size.
2. It has a combination of media and tools to let you create a perfect composition.
3. Clone sources, clone painting and auto painting panel are the professional painting tools.
4. It gives a painting environment with the sole focus on your artwork.

Cons:

1. Some people might prefer the traditional instead of the digital practice of designing.
2. The navigation may get a bit of a task for the beginners.

Affinity

Affinity is the solutions of you are in search to redefine your graphics. Try it for the fastest and the smoothest graphic design and photo editing powerful software. These are the ones pushing all the boundaries set in the creative technology industry. It is compatible with both Windows and Mac to let you create groundbreaking illustrations. To add an extra touch to the illustrations, you can use the high-quality creative content pack to give a polishing touch. It gives intrinsic zoom inexperience, a high range of colour space, and possess CMYK workflow as well.

Pros:

1. It enables vector designing, graphic designing and UX.
2. It can satisfy almost every demand for digital illustrators.
3. It comes with a user-friendly interface.

Cons:

1. It is a paid application tool.
2. Some of the features might not function well.
3. It will take time to adjust if you are switching from any other illustrating tools.

Final Words

These illustration tools are a great way of creating eye catchy websites. Gone is the time when people were just used to read textual material online. There is no doubt in the fact that the better and attractive your website is, the more are the number of visitors. So in addition to informational content, viewers also count on the appearance of the website as well. Platforms like an e-commerce business, social media, video-based content etc. are the ones which can use the web design software so as to raise their audience base and hence grow gradually. By effectively using Photoshop, website building software, video compression software, design software etc., the developers are posing high stakes on their websites’ appearance and visibility. This not only helps the graphic designers or art lovers but also helps to make your website unique and stand apart from the rest.

Therefore, these illustration tools are here to lend you support to give more creative edge to your creations.

So go ahead and let the creativity begin!

Happy designing!