Realistic Paint Studio

The tools are easy to use, hard to master. You'll definitely need to put more work in to make your art look good compared to other programs like Procreate, but the results are beautiful. I'm sure I could go on and on about how pretty and neat the options are, but to be honest, you will want to just see for yourself, it's quite hard to explain in words. It just feels good. That being said, this would be even better with stuff like layer mode options (for those who like to mix traditional coloring techniques with digital ones further). I didn't notice anything like that, I think it would be good to include! I also think some stuff like canvas tilting and the assignable shortcuts are a bit buggy/janky and don't always work as they should. I also think the special color algorithm needs some tweaking, as blending the primary colors doesn't seem to work entirely correctly for example. Aside from that, future expansive categories of brushes, paid or not, would be wonderful to have as well! I would love to see stuff like gouache, acryllic paint, more inking pens, and maybe stuff like oil pastels? (I didn't see any of these things but it's possible I missed it, I did just get this program after all!) Either way, I hope that this will be semi-regularly maintained, updated, and improved, it's really good!

Fresco is a premium paint simulation subscription with lackluster features for the monthly payments. Art Set 4 has frustratingly unsupported standards, with the most obvious example being the neglected integration of stylus features that are universal everywhere else. The lack of Palm rejection and stylus only modes, leaves you accidentally painting with your Palm. The frustration multiplies if you don't lift your hand right away and you end up choosing between undoing progress or fixing it manually. Art Rage has a digital feel to the final project, mostly due to the smooth strokes and overly accented light reflections. Paintstorm has occasional lag, most noticably in the experimental brushes. I think it was abandoned and never updated for performance optimization in newer devices. My only complaint with this studio is a bug where the engine processes the color of the wood as paint. You will inevitably mix in the Wood's fleshy tone into your color palette, but that is a minor annoyance and negligible. I bought this studio on a whim, and immediately upgraded with the premium pack IAP after playing with it for a half hour. I highly recommend.

Love the app, really enjoy it. (As far as I can tell) it doesn’t have as many of the usual “digital art” features like different blending modes for layers and stuff like that, but it does a very good job of simulating a traditional art feel, which is great if you want to feel like you’re using watercolors but don’t want to get messy or don’t have the space to get messy. (Or can’t, if you’re on a train or plane or whatever.) One thing I wish it had: the ability to save custom colors to the sets of colors for different mediums. I find myself wishing I could mix a particular color pastel or watercolor and then save it to my “palette”, to be used in the future. There are a lot of different colors to begin with, but I find the color picker a little clunky to use (I”m used to H/S/B and R/G/B sliders from other digital art apps I guess.) I also find that although the app will allow you to make canvases up to 5000 by 5000 pixels, it really can’t support that. None of the brushes scale up big enough to make a dent on the canvas (so enjoy painting by teeny tiny bits and taking hours to fill areas lol) and the app begins to lag horribly (running it on an iPad Pro, so shouldn’t be my device’s fault.) Would love to see that addressed as well.

I’m submitting a new review after having spent about three weeks using this app. It took me a while to learn where certain tools and options were hiding (select & transform tools, reference window, etc.), but I finally have it figured out. This app is simply amazing for painting and drawing. It is a pleasure to use. The oils look and feel great, the watercolors and paper textures are really nice, the pencils and pens look authentic, I can’t stop using it! No other app compares to this in realism of artist mediums. I’d love to see more paper options added to the custom canvas creation menu (like pastel boards, stained-looking, different color papers, etc.), larger canvas option for printing (bigger than 5,000x5,000 at higher dpi), the ability to move the color wheel and palettes around, and ability to export as a PSD file with layers. Keep up the great work! I would highly recommend this app to any digital artist looking for that realistic paint feel. Well worth the price. Looking forward to future updates and additions.

This might be biased because I’m a penny pincher , with that being said this app has amazing potential to be the next huge thing, but there needs to be more, more backgrounds more paper textures more mediums like brush pens, gouache,fine liners, maybe different type of watercolors like sumo-ink stinks in different colors or concentrated watercolor and maybe expand the markers because there’s only one that’s limited (not counting the highlighter not the best for a realistic feel but I still really like it ) also backgrounds for the final picture because having a few limited ones get old after awhile. May I suggest being able to take a picture of your own background and being able to add shadows and light? but overall I’m truly in love with it so much but I can’t shake the feeling of something missing, also being extremely nit picky I wish their was an in depth tutorial on how to use it and all the the tiny bits and shortcuts(like color wheel didn’t know I could adjust the size so maybe add something like in adobe sketch where they teach you the basics of new things ) I seriously love this app and I want to support it and help it grow

This app is definitely worth the 12$. I feel like this is if Corel Painter, Art Set 4, and Procreate had an app baby. But instead of the high cooperation price of 200$ or too low 3$ with a subscription; it’s a nice middle of 12$ price one time purchase. It does have optional brush pack purchases, but it comes with a lot too. I also love that it isn’t a subscription based platform like Adobe or Corel. It’s also the little details that I absolutely adore. The developers paid great attention into making it feel very traditional with all the icons and textures (something that Procreate and the others don’t have for their prices). My only little nit-pick is that it sometimes crashes when doing the preview picture mode. Other than that, I really like this app.

So far so good but there are some obvious bugs that make this app really frustrating: -color resets from mixing palette to whats on the color wheel every time you adjust brush size -color wheel doesnt update when using eyedropper on mixing palette -why are there two separate color droppers? I get ones for the canvas and one is for the palette but how much simpler and streamlined would workflow be if there was only just one? No need to separate the palette from the canvas -pressure curve is wonky - when the pressure slider is lowered only the smallest amount of pressure activates fully pressing hard on the stylus, when pressure slider is at its highest you have to push SO hard to get it to register. Needs a healthy middleground -navigating the screen is cumbersome. Why do you need three fingers to move the canvas and two fingers to zooom in and out? Why not do everything with just two fingers? Navigating is a pain as its currently implemented -color picker doesn’t update when switching brushes. I get that its supposed to be “realistic” but if i wanted my brushes to always have the last color used on them I’d paint something in real life. This just really slows down workflow and is a hassle when you’re “in the zone” There’s a lot of potential here it just needs to be honed in a bit, very fun painting app

Solid painting app and I’m an owner of Paintstorm Studio on both iOS and Windows. TL:DR Great app, focused on the experience of sitting down with traditional media and having at it. Not as polished as the large market share apps but does good at what it’s focusing on. THE BREAKDOWN: I think it a refreshing take with some fantastic brushes, great mockups for when you’re ready to show off the finished work in a realistic setting, textures, tool marks on the substrate in all their glory. I do feel as if there needs to be a few fixes, however. 1. The brush selecting could be a bit more fluid and drags when you really want to move along quickly. 2. There are not options to customize your brushes, what you see is what you get with the exceptions of scaling, etc. (I feel like this was done to keep with idea of only using what’s in front of you) 3. I’m not a huge fan of eye dropper color selections. Kinda of had to stumble my way around figuring out how to use it in tandem with the mixer pallet. Had to cave in and read the manual. 4. Some brushes need extra settings as light pressure really does nothing until you have to press down. By that time the brushes marks are not what you want. Get effort by the developers a d if they stay up with updates and new features, we having some exciting ground to play in.

This is the first digital art program that really feels like drawing/painting in real life. No it doesn't have some functions you would find in photoshop or other programs, but it really brings the fun back. My traditional illustrations are easily edited here and I can even recreate my normal mixed media style. I like this way better than corel or any other program I've tried, and I have tried a lot. There is a "transform" tool of sorts, I do wish you could fully flip/mirror images, that would be the one thing that I would add. Other things would be nice, but I think the point of the app is to be as real to being in an art studio as possible, and I don't want to tamper too much with that premise.

This reminds me of what photoshop was like when it was more user friendly. This has what Procreate lacks right now, too. Wet paint! Paint that drips and spills! A canvas that remembers that! I almost didn’t buy this because I never spend money on myself, but this was so worth it. I like what it comes with for the cost. Much more value than subscriptions, which *ahem*, artists hate (developers take note). This app is magical! I’m going to have a problem putting it down. Now I just need my iPad to have more battery life. This app is stunningly beautiful! The tools are gorgeous and actually help you to remember what real art tools actually do. This app is exquisite.

My experience with this app has been for the most part really pleasant. As a traditional painter it has been really pleasant to use and helpful with my transition from traditional paintings to digital art. However, there are a couple of thing that I feel could be improved/added such as an option to manually save pieces into the apps files or and automatic saving as a piece is being progressing. When saving a piece to my iPad it automatically deletes the entire image from the apps files. Also the left handed tutorial doesn’t have an option to proceed to the next part of the tutorial, It’s there for the right handed option just not the left. Overall this a super fun app, user friendly and a creative way to blend the traditional and digital art making. Can’t wait to see how it grows, thank you :)

Highly recommended! Watercolor is not up to par with Fresco, but everything else is far superior! You won’t be sorry for paying for this one! I’m much more comfortable using anything that feels like natural media because of my background in oils and watercolors. So for me, compared to apps like even the venerable Procreate, my best work always comes out of this app! There’s a few minor quirks, such as learning how to adjust the Pencil to create different angles, but that’s something any natural media app has to deal with. The interface, which I both love and hate depending on my needs, could use some tweaking to make it a bit easier to access different media when doing a mixed media piece. However, I understand the bias toward toward realism, which I also appreciate. There is another app that focuses on realistic media, and it completely abandoned its natural tool feel in favor of a more digital one. Now it’s unusable and I haven’t used it since, so please, keep the slant toward realistic, but maybe take more advantage of the digital side of things.

This app is pretty amazing honestly. There’s a limited amount of brushes but they all have great utility. There are limited canvases, but a variety of sizes. Runs rather well, in fact this version of the app runs very well compared to its Windows counterpart. If you need a lot of flexibility with custom brushes and changing canvas sizes, this app lacks that. Those are my only cons. But if you want or need an amazing app that let’s draw and paint, you can’t pass this one up. You can create full, detailed pieces, you have layers to work with, great blending, and even amazing inking tools (paid tools mind you). Overall, great app. Simulates traditional mediums superbly well.

I finally found it. A proper ballpoint pen, fantastic pencils, beautiful oils and watercolors. So good! The papers, canvases and fantastic brushes. This app is a dream come true. I am in love.. Thank you dev team. The pressure with pencil is so perfect. I can shade as real as paper in terms of response and tilt. The ruler is genius.. it just works so so well. Beautifully made and so so worth it. You can see your brush cursor… *tears of joy* I have so many painting apps I can stop using and wandering around seeking .. here it is. MAGICAL - Jobs would be proud. You have done a great thing! A very great thing!!!! Could we please have a way to copy/paste selections?

This digital painting program is pure awesomeness. It is clear a lot of ingenuity and hard work went into creating it. The verisimilitude of the brushes and canvasses rival the real mediums so much that I doubt I’ll ever buy any more watercolor or oil paint tubes and canvasses and brushes, except for the fact that this program does now allow the use of mixed media. I cannot, for example, lay down a pencil sketch before diving in with water coloring. You are limited to a single medium per canvas/rendering. I wish the developer would make the in-app purchases less cumbersome. I made eleven purchases in a row, which triggered an alert from my financial institution. Perhaps a single deluxe pack would make things easier. I also bought the PC and Mac versions of this program. I want to support this developer to encourage continued development. This program also comes with several tutorials. I hope more are added. But this program is very intuitive and experimenting with all the options is fun and educational. Still an excellent program that I’m sure will improve over time. Buy it.

The user interface needs to be tweaked so it looks more professional and less like a toy, but the app itself (and the experience of painting in the app) is amazing. Colors blend and behave like they should, papers have textures, and the brushes feel right. There aren’t as many options to tweak and change every parameter, but for the most part you just don’t need to because the brushes have been created to work like they should. I hope the developer continues to update and improve this software because it really is fantastic.

its been two years i love this app to bits and pieces genuinely i dont want it to stop updating it when it has so much potential… the brushes are lovely the color engine is GREAT i cant get anything like it anywhere else … i think the oil brushes could use a bit more work though and the app overall lacks some features especially compared to others but either way what im saying is please update it i am one of this apps biggest fans its great but it could still use some updates :(

WOW. This app is a work of art in itself. The more I played with it, the more I had to keep picking my jaw up off the floor. I don't even know where to begin with everything great about it. Just get it. If you want to create "real media" art digitally, this is your app. The tools are incredibly good and very complete. The aesthetic of the entire app is gorgeous. The UI is fantastic, and the way the ruler tool works is enough to write an entire paragraph of praise on its own. I can tell the dev really put their heart into this, and it shows.

Hi, I purchased this app, and I am glad I did. It’s brushes and canvases that mimic the real thing are top notch, particularly the watercolor . The other display features make it great too. However, it would be great to be able adjust brush opacity. It would also be very helpful if the brush sizes and canvas sizes could be adjusted to our liking. Lastly, it would be great to have multi touch gestures, such as press and hold to pick a color from the canvas, as well as three finger swipe up or down to raise/ lower brush size, and three finger swipe left or right to adjust opacity. That being said, it is a great app, and I am excited to see what you do with it in the future.

Most realistic paint brushes for iPad, bar none! The interface of this program is very different, no “gazillion” brushes available, just extremely realistic, basic brushes, pens, pencils and tools. Mimics real life paints, palates and tools. If you want to really paint and draw digitally, instead of just horsing around, this is the app to use. I hope they keep it going and update it only as really needed, rather than just adding gimmicks to it as other app envelopes do..

This app is awesome, it really is realistic and it’s made really well I’ve had it for a while now I use it about as much as procreate! But their new update with the coloring pages are just fantastic, I can’t wait till they add some more. You can tell they put a lot of work into them having 3 or 4 different settings for coloring inside the lines. This app is great for adults and kids alike, highly recommended!

I think that maybe if you want to blend the paint together maybe add like a water cup so we can dip the paint brush in the cup if you want to blend it with a paint brush. Also maybe when you pick your paint brush, maybe if you hold down on it, you can drag the paint brush so you can actually paint with the paint brush and not your finger. It’s ok if you can’t do this. I would just like it if you take this idea into consideration. Thank you!

Realistic is lots of fun to play with and pretty easy to pick up (follow the tutorials for orienting yourself). But... it chews through the battery on a 2018 iPad Pro 12.9. Even on this large screen, one improvement would be to make the names on the brushes larger. They are small and hard to read. Maybe display the name of the selected brush above the row of brushes as a compromise to form vs function. Biggest ask: Adding a way to keep 2-3 brushes "out" for quick swapping.

This cool app has a very high potential to be the best software to replace traditional media. For 10+ years, I’ve been a traditional artist using watercolor mainly. I got a chance to try this app, and I love it. Its brush engines and simulation make my day. However, there’s always an improvement for its future updates. So I can’t wait to see more of it. 10/10 recommended.

…so I'm still learning, but so far I like it a lot! “Realistic” lives up to the app's name. Being a self-taught artist, I need a lot of practice, but this app allows that. I would like to see more landscape canvas options. I've unlocked a few (for $.99), but would like to know/view the options of what I’m paying for before clicking to buy these.

It is SO much fun to look at and use. The major flaw however, is the inability to export as a normal image file (PNG, JPG, TIF, PSD). So while it’s fun to marvel and fart around with the virtual media/environment, you don’t want to work too hard because if something starts to turn out good, it’s a waste because you’re stuck with the cutesy gallery/studio simulated images. I suspect that the dev now realizes this and will implement normal export. 5 stars if that’s the case. Import image (not just for reference) would be valuable as well.

It’s a great drawing app for traditional artists, who want to try digital with the basics. Here’s a few suggestions: 1. It would be nice to have more techniques on watercolor section. 2. More canvas sizes, including shapes. 3. Apple Pencil 2 support. As a traditional and digital artist, I’m used to drawing/painting with an item in my hand than using fingers/mouse, and continue to do this with my digital works. Thanks.

It’s like an art lovers playground. I just love it. I just randomly came across this app. Just love turning on my music and just letting my mind do the work. Love how realistic it makes your work look. Also all the stuff you can do on here. From coloring, tutorials, to just doing freestyle. Paints, watercolors, drawing. Makes my iPad purchase even more worth it.

I am a procreate and photoshop user, and I decided to try this app out, and I am quite impressed! I will enjoy trying out each option to see how it does, but so for it has performed beautifully. Worth the price, And you can update tools to mix and match so you have the studio experience you are looking for!

So many other apps throw you into the deep end with so many choices and it becomes way too overwhelming. This gives you everything you need and nothing you don’t. As a noob painter this is exactly what I need.

I’ve liked this app so far, except when I go to click the camera button it will crash and wipe the file from existence. I’m not talking after 15 seconds of use, either. I mean at least an hour and a half worth of artwork just vanished from sight. Twice, now, with the oil palette.

Impressive! Just messing around doing some Bob Ross kind of thing and whipped up a painting quickly. This will keep me busy. Can’t wait to get a larger grasp on using it. Blowing the painting up to create finer detail was something I discovered towards the end. just pinch and expand.

I want to give it a good review, it’s a fun and unique app. Unfortunately, it crashes every single time I try to export my work. I’m hoping this gets fixed soon so I won’t feel like I just wasted $12. I also want to add that including a way to export the image as is would be a big deal, it’s fun to dink around in but I don’t want to post some fake art setup on my social media all the time. Not that it matters because I can’t export without crashing anyway.

Would have been great if there were some settings for the brushes and canvases. As far as realistic painting programs go this one is better than most iPad apps I have tried so far, but it still might not be suitable for a more serious painting.

Congratulations on this new art app. Truly does have some wonderful natural media brushes. I hope that you can allow more user input to customize the brushes and to be able to work with pressure curves or something that will allow me to not have to press the stylus so hard on my iPad Pro. Again, lots of potential. One more suggestion. Please allow us to Install on two computers. A desktop and a laptop. I switch between the two all the time.

Very realistic. So much so that it feels off putting lolol but I eventually found my love for the feel. My only complaint is that I cannot figure out how trip but the special brushes!!! Please ttyl me hope and I will change my rating to 5 stars.

Love how well the tools are design, presented and organized. The pressure dynamics and the blending are intrinsic and beautiful. It’s so relaxing and I just can’t stop drawing and painting. The only thing I’m having trouble setting up is the reference layer... I can’t seem to find my pictures to use them as reference.

I really enjoy the paint engine in this product. It’s very realistic and makes me think more traditionally than other digital painting products. Opportunities for improvement: - less interface. While it’s got that traditional feel, I would rather have less intrusive interface. Give me the canvas, tools and palette. - better Apple Pencil control. A brush curve would be great. Also the first stroke usually has no sensitivity - some missing things: thinning of oil painting - think under painting, charcoal would be awesome Keep up the good work.

Absolutely love this app i really love the pastels they are one of my favorite mediums to paint with in non digital and they are amazingly represented here in the app. I’d love to see Copic style markers or alcohol markers to be exact.

An absolutely fantastic app. Very realistic. The only reason I did not give it 5 stars is the inability to view and save just the painting/drawing. I appreciate the “scenes”, the easels, notebooks, etc… But, there needs to be an option to export/save without that.

It’s a cute app, not worth the price tag tho. Also I hate that they make you further purchase brushes that feel like they should have come with the base app. It’s also not for professional use in my opinion. Just stick to Procreate. That’s a much better digital drawing program.

I just downloaded this app and I’m loving it. Super easy to use, there is two things it I feel it’s missing. Being able to rotate the canvas and being able to get a normal blank canvas.

This is a great app. I hope we can make canvases our own size and resolution. I’m not sure what the maximum resolution is when exporting an image now. Thanks!

First, it’s a fun app to play with. It includes some really neat features. And, the brush strokes feel good. It could be an awesome and very useful app. I’m frustrated because it could be so good. But, it’s not. some limitations: The help files and demonstrations don’t help much. The palette is an interesting concept, but I don’t understand how to use it. Also, it doesn’t allow undo. It lacks the ability to customize or create brushes. It lacks a color-picker and a lot of standard features that other apps have. It’s good enough that I’ll come back in a year and see what’s changed though.

It is feels really natural! Wish developers to add more stuff for this app (increase resolution, add export to gallery, etc! Nice work overall )

After several minutes of not being able to select a brush THAT I OWN with the 12 bucks required to purchase this, I just gave up and requested a refund. I am not going to try and figure out an interface that doesn’t make brush selection one of the easiest things to do in an app instead of the hardest and be constantly nagged about having to buy a brush. After Paint Studio I didn’t think it was possible to make an interface even harder to navigate, but congratulations, you did it. No Thanks.

Just not great. No way to save colors or brush sizes. No brush settings besides size. No way to select colors with your hand. The brush engine is decent, so +2 stars for that.

This would be correctly priced at $2.99 not $12. The limited tool customization and brush selections are bothersome as is the user interface between media. Yes it works, but just not worth $12.

This app is amazing I love how it looks so real but can you add more brushes and more paints like acrylic and gouache plss.

I love this now because it has all the theater told you