Art Review: 2018 iPad vs iPad Pro

Apple finally made a normal iPad with Pencil support! Here is my review of the 6th gen 2018 iPad, compared to iPad Pro:

iPad Pro 10.5 vs Original 12.9

Here is a video comparison between the new iPad Pro 10.5, and the original 12.9. See  the original full iPad Pro artist review, for the full rundown. So far, I'm loving it!

iPad Pro + Pencil Artist Review (vs Wacom Cintiq Companion)

I've been using the iPad Pro + Pencil for a couple of months now, and I think it's the best digital drawing experience that I've ever had. For sketching and drawing, the Pro and Pencil just feel so natural. Apple made something different, whereas other drawing tools and tablets are either made by Wacom, use Wacom, or trying to copy the Wacom stylus. I'm a huge Wacom fanboy, so it's hard to win me over, but Apple did it! The Apple Pencil is truly is an incredible first gen device, see the review video below, to see why:

iPad Pro + Pencil Artist Review


Procreate is my favorite drawing app on iOS, it really is an amazingly powerful app. It has everything you need for sketching and painting. Here is my tweaked Pencil brush for Procreate. Here are directions on how to import brushes into Procreate from Dropbox: The brush is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8y5grf3eqsbnkd/Apple_Pencil_Crabfu.brush?dl=0

I found the tilt setting on most drawing apps make the line thickness way too much, and Procreate was no exception. This may make the Apple Pencil look really impressive at first, tilting will turn your pencil into a gigantic graphite stick, but is very hard to control. After a lot of tweaking with this brush, I'm very happy with the results. It feels like a natural pencil, when a bit of shade when you tilt it down low. This pencil brush, along with the pressure curve + screen protector shown in the video, made all of the difference.

Here are some of my sketches, using 100% iPad Pro/Pencil & Procreate:

Portrait sketch practice, me and my boys. I used ipad's split screen view, to see reference pictures on half of the screen, and sketch on the other half, worked out great.

I'm not much of a painter, but testing out painting rather than drawing.

Sketch of my wife

Love the blue pencil feel!

And a sketch using Sketchbook Pro

Previously, I reviewed the Wacom Cintiq Companion, Wacom Creative Stylus, and Galaxy Note, and other Tablet PC's, but now it's hard to imagine wanting to use them over the iPad Pro/Pencil. I still need to keep the Cintiq Companion, for heavy duty photoshop stuff for work. But if I want to just draw, design some characters, sketch out ideas, even render in color, I think iPad Pro can handle just about everything I need. At half the cost of the Wacom Cintiq Companion, I'd strongly recommend iPad Pro and Pencil.

Wacom Creative Stylus & iPad Air Review/Mod

I am in love with this rig. iPad Air with the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus. Check out the reivew and mod video:

Wacom Creative Stylus with Teflon tip.
Still fits in the case!

Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus is a Bluetooth stylus for the iPad. It's got 2048 levels of pressure, and comes with a case, battery, and a couple of extra nibs. I wasn't sure what to expect from this stylus, but it has exceeded my expectations, it simply works great. But I quickly noticed the low pressure levels to be lacking, and surfing around I found this official Wacom response.

An official Wacom rep on the European Wacom forums, confirming that the new iPad Air does have different hardware, making the stylus lack the ultra low pressure feel: http://forum.wacom.eu/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16265&start=10 Wacom sez "It seems that the iPad Air touch sensor is a bit different than in previous iPads. Reports say that the glass is thinner (less layers) and probably there is a difference in the power to the touch sensor. This can require some more pressure with the pen to get any reaction independant of the Bluetooth connection"

Mod with JaJa Teflon tip

So when I saw that post, I thought of using a non rubber tip, perhaps one of the disc types. When I started digging around to see if it's been done, I found this: http://procreate.si/forums/index.php?topic=2910.0 and sure enough, I tried it and it worked great. Thanks Germs770 on the Procreate forums for sharing! I've improved how it's attached on, but credit goes out to him for the first to try it. Funny enough, I think maybe Wacom may have had something like this in mind? The tip has a hole it it, and the case has extra space for it as well. It's almost like it's made for it!

Seeing through the circular tip

And for the record, I did try the stock nib on the iPad 4th generation, and can confirm that the low pressure feel works great. And even with the lack of low pressure feel on the Air, I'd still recommend it for the Air.

One thing that I did forget to mention, is that there are 2 buttons on the stylus. For Procreate, they are for Undo and Redo. I did find that I hit the bottom button often by accident, while pinch zooming..... Strange, because I never do it on the Cintiq while pinch zooming, and the pen feels nicely balanced. I guess I'll probably get used to it with time.

Supplies list in the video:

The palm rejection pads used are: Targus CleanVu Cleaning Pads

The disc tips are: Hex3 JaJa Percision Teflon Tips

The plastic thermal plastics are: Shapelock

And as promised, here are my pencils to use with Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x46ipovenmf6n5v/All%20purpose.brush
All Purpose is the one that I use the most. I spent way too much time tweaking with it, to make it look and feel like a pencil:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mwia3vpv753gul3/Solid.brush
Solid is one that lacks texture, and looks more digital and clean. It's good in conjunction with All Purpose pencil as well, to punch up the details.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m6v9yg9gu420bjy/Shading%20Graphite.brush
Shading Graphite is just a modified version of the stock. I've modified it slightly to make it feel more natural.

Procreate forums also has a lot of really great custom brushes here: http://procreate.si/forums/index.php?board=20.0 and has instructions on how to download/upload them. Try them, I've found a lot of great brushes there. Make sure that in the brush settings, that the Size/Opacity Limits in "General" are varied for Max and Min, since most of them are not made with pressure sensitivity in mind. If pressure levels feel weird, try changing the "Pressure" in the "Dynamics" tab. It's best when it's not 100%, but somewhere in the 75-95% range. Strangely enough, 100% feels too sensitive and hard to control the full range. Of course tune to your own taste :)

I was finally able to find some time over vacation break to do some sketches with this rig. It's funny, but after designing Skylanders characters for so long, it's hard to do something outside of my own style. Here are some Speed Drawings, some are very rough and loose, and some are tighter.... testing out this combo:

This is the only image here that were done with the stock nib,
and using Sketchbook Pro instead of Procreate. Even lacking the
low pressure levels and with the big nib, you can still get
nice line weight and detail

Overall, this is the best thing ever for the iPad. The pressure levels are just amazing, feels almost like a Cintiq (I will try to find some time to do a review on the Wacom Cintiq Companion soon). And with the Procreate combo, along with mods mentioned, this is one amazing mobile sketchpad!

So, should you get it? If you've already have an ipad 3,4, or mini, and love to draw, then you'll probably love this! if you have an Air or Retina Mini, and either don't care about low pressure levels, or you love to modify things, then it's a no-brainer.

Pros:
-Amazing pressure levels (except for low levels mentioned above)
-Comes with battery, case, and extra nibs
-Battery seems to be lasting forever
-Stylus is heavy for a Wacom, but somehow feels really nicely balanced. I don't find it heavy while drawing.

Cons:
-Need mods for low pressure levels for the iPad Air and Retina Mini
-The buttons are too easily triggered when pinch zooming
-Not too many apps support it. Some of the listed apps don't work, or are way laggy. Palm rejection doesn't work well, even on Wacom's own Bamboo Paper App.

Procreate for iPad

I bought the Procreate app for the iPad a long time ago, but I never really gave it a proper shot. I started playing with it again last night, and it is now one of my favorite drawing apps for the iPad. There is nothing too fancy, the simplicity is what I love about these drawing apps. But what sets it apart from other iPad drawing apps, are the little slider bars on the side. Positioned so that you can easily get to it WHILE you are drawing, you can vary the line width and/or opacity as you sketch and paint. Still not as good as just having pressure sensitivity, but is pretty cool after you get use to controlling line width and opacity with your left hand.

Size and opacity sliders work while you draw! You can get some nice line work:

procreate Savage Interactive Pty Ltd Category: Entertainment Updated: Jun 16, 2011                    548 Ratings