iPad Pro 11 and 2nd Generation Pencil. What drawing app works best?

Thanks in advance for your time and answers.

I think to a degree it’s personal preference but I like Procreate myself. Is there a specific kind of drawing that you have in mind?

It’s all about personal preference. And ask what type of art are you trying to achieve — that’s going to guide you the best. Here’s a few to get you started off:

Procreate
Concepts
Affinity Designer
Adobe Illustrator
Sketchbook
Tayasui Sketches
Clip Paint Studio

My preference is Affinity Designer. I use their whole suite (Photo, Designer, and Publisher) as the core apps for my design business. Those three apps have made me a lot of money for the little I spent on them (they often go on sale during parts of the year).

But if I just want to create some light sketches, I use something like Concepts, Tayasui Sketches (or even Goodnotes for really rough sketches!)

For pixel-based images the free Sketchbook is my favourite - but as @ericwn asked, what are you planning to do?
If your interest lies in vector-based drawing take a look in Vectornator, Amadine or Affinity Designer.

Procreate here. I've taken a couple udemy courses on it, and its deep. The ability to use different "paints" (watercolor, acrylic, chalk, etc) and see them blend like the real thing, with the AP, is cool beans.
For engineering drawings/woodworking plans, I prefer DraftSight (and it's free!)

ericwn said:

I think to a degree it’s personal preference but I like Procreate myself. Is there a specific kind of drawing that you have in mind?

I’m not exactly sure what I want to do to be honest. Just looking at something to use as a sketchbook and do a variety of different things.

Don't discount the inbuilt Notes app. It is excellent for sketching.

Procreate for full blown artistic painting and drawing.

Concepts is also an excellent vector based drawing app.

My personal top 3:

Linea Sketch
- Simple and straightforward, yet powerful with excellently designed tools
Moleskine Flow
- Wonderfully designed interface, realistic drawing experience
Paper
- Very direct, great toolset and color palette, ugly interface with over the top 3D effects

For me without a shadow of doubt it’s Procreate.
You can do so much with Procreate from light sketches to full painting.
Want to touch up a photo or change something on it.. no problem.
Collage’s…. Start with a large canvas and import several photos and make your own collage with design, flare and text. Need to play and warp, pinch etc. go ahead.
The only brush that is not available is Impasto.…. For that I use Art Set or ArtRage.

Thanks all for the responses. I am going t try procreate first and see how that goes. Maybe start out with some tutorials...

GerritV said:

My personal top 3:

Linea Sketch
- Simple and straightforward, yet powerful with excellently designed tools
Moleskine Flow
- Wonderfully designed interface, realistic drawing experience
Paper
- Very direct, great toolset and color palette, ugly interface with over the top 3D effects

Another huge vote for Moleskine flow.

This might not be for everyone, but I’ve tried and tested almost all the major art apps on the store, exhaustively, to see what worked for me. I use other apps for more heavy art. But as a complete beginner and a non-artist, Moleskine Flow has been an incredible experience for more lightweight, casual sketching.

It’s incredibly well designed and the whole experience is really nice and makes me want to draw more. I use it as a scribble pad and for general sketches. Also works great if you import an image/template of a daily planner (hundreds available on a Google search).

GhostOS said:

Another huge vote for Moleskine flow.

This might not be for everyone, but I’ve tried and tested almost all the major art apps on the store, exhaustively, to see what worked for me. I use other apps for more heavy art. But as a complete beginner and a non-artist, Moleskine Flow has been an incredible experience for more lightweight, casual sketching.

It’s incredibly well designed and the whole experience is really nice and makes me want to draw more. I use it as a scribble pad and for general sketches. Also works great if you import an image/template of a daily planner (hundreds available on a Google search).

Click to expand...

Meanwhile, I've been waiting since last Wednesday for an answer from their Support Desk
IMHO, with a subscription based app I expect to be helped within 24 hours.
So I will most likely stop throwing my money to Moleskine very soon, and handle everything within Linea Sketch.

GerritV said:

Meanwhile, I've been waiting since last Wednesday for an answer from their Support Desk
IMHO, with a subscription based app I expect to be helped within 24 hours.
So I will most likely stop throwing my money to Moleskine very soon, and handle everything within Linea Sketch.

Good luck, whatever works for you.

The folks at Moleskine team were super quick and helpful with my problem last month.