Looking for best graphic tablet software? Looking for great and high quality drawing software free? Graphic tablets are a very practical tool, they help anyone to draw or paint more effectively, they can even come in handy if you’re an amateur or a professional artist looking to improve your sketching skills.
Learning how to draw free has never been easier, especially with the support of free graphic tablet software. Making this possible are drawing tablets and pen monitors that offer you the opportunity to do a large majority of the work digitally. Best of all, drawing tablets are more affordable than ever! Even small budgets can make room for one if you yield to the power of online shopping . Also, free drawing software as well as graphic tablet reviews will help you make an informed choice.
Canva
Canva is arguably the most popular and used among the free online graphic design apps. You can design pretty much anything thanks to its intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Platforms: Web, Android, iOS
Rating: average of 4.7 / 5 out of 8,738 reviews on Capterra
Skill Level: Beginner
Templates Available: Social Media, Business, Personal, Marketing, Education, Trending
Best Used for: Social Graphics
Cost: from Free to $27 / month | Try Canva Pro for free
Free Plan Specs:
- 250,000 free templates
- +100 design types
- +100,000 free photos
- Invite members to your team
- Collaborate and comment in real-time
- 5GB of cloud storage
Pros:
- Very intuitive interface
- Minimal learning curve required
- Layouts for every occasion
- Stock images and illustrations
- Social media graphics
- Library of fonts
- Drag & drop editor
- Custom templates
- Customizable branding
- Photo editing
Cons:
- It can be a bit slow at times
- Occasional glitches
Krita
Krita is a free and open source painting program, which has been developed for artists, illustrators and for the VFX industry. This comes with many innovative features to help beginners and professionals alike. The user can have a trouble-free drawing experience and the user interface allows the user to move the docker and panels so that it doesn’t get in the way of drawing. The brush stabilizers offered by Krita will smooth and stabilize the brush strokes. Over 9 unique brush engines let you customize the brush to perform specific needs.
Adobe Character Animator
Adobe Character Animator is another one of Adobe’s animation software stack. But unlike Adobe Animate, Character Animator lets you use motion capture to create live animations of your 2D characters. For example, you can create a character in Illustrator or Photoshop, import it into Character Animator, set it up with tags and then animate it using your own facial movements using your webcam.
Features:
- Real-time motion capture and automatic facial tracking.
- Download characters from Creative Cloud Market.
- Integration with Photoshop and Illustrator.
- Move the character’s limbs with your mouse.
- Timeline panel for recording and editing scenes.
Pricing: Included in the Creative Cloud All-Apps Plan that costs $39.99/month.
Pros: Easy to replicate real-life movements and expressions with facial tracking. Plenty of import and export options.
Cons: This software is available as part of the all apps pack, not as a standalone product. Also, you need to have a webcam and microphone to use the motion capture feature.
Ideal for: Bloggers, marketers, entertainers, educators.
Maya
Initially established in 1998, Maya is an Academy Award-winning (2003) 3D computer graphics and animation software. Currently owned by Autodesk, it is especially useful for the creation of interactive 3D applications like motion pictures, video games, TV series, special effects, and more.
It is, without any doubt, one of the best software tools on the market providing 3D animation, and has been acclaimed for its use in notable films like ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Spiderman,’ ‘Star Wars,’ and ‘Ice Age.’
The best part is that it is compatible with all operating systems including Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Best for:
Maya is one of the best animation software tools for creating animation pictures, video games, and adding 3D effects in motion pictures. If you require high-quality visual effects, then Maya has you covered.
Advanced Features:
- Clip matching feature
- Bifrost liquid creation feature that creates simulations of photorealistic movies
- Excellent Adobe character animator
- Allows deep adaptive liquid simulations
- In-built accelerated modeling workflows
- Paint effect feature that allows you to make 3D shapes by freehand drawing tools and drawing software
- Enhanced viewport 2.0 and DX11Shader rendering engine (blur refFlections, shader effects, imparting translucency)
- Free-form approach to 3D modeling that allows you to add as many layers as you want
- Arnold integration – this RenderView feature can be used to view scene changes in real-time
- Create your own scripts and plugins for better customization (in Maya-embedded Language or python scripting)
- Voice-o-matic provides lip-syncing technology, motion capture, and walk cycles
Pros:
- Complex hand-made animation tasks made extremely easy
- Efficient color management (useful Boolean operations on polygon geometry)
- Create realistic effects including explosions and cloth simulations
- Excellent rendering technology even for the most advanced projects
- Comes with a 30-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee which are great to take it for a test drive
Pricing:
Maya is easily the best 3D animation software on the market and comes in at a reasonable cost of $1,700/year (or pay $215/month). They also offer a 30-day free trial so you can test the software before making the purchase.
Maya is one of the best on the market and my #2 pick this year.
You can test out Maya for free with a 30-day free trial or purchase a yearly plan and save 34%.
Blender
Blender is an open-source video editing software that lets you have total control over your animations. The tool offers advanced command line and programming features for rendering, modeling and creating 3D animations. It works across different operating systems, so you can use it on Linux, Windows and Mac.
Features:
- Powerful rendering, modeling and sculpting tools.
- Advanced animation and rigging tools.
- Draw and edit in 3D mode.
- Video editing and VFX, including motion tracking, masking and compositing.
- Powerful and realistic simulation tools.
- Extensive Python API for scripting and customization.
- Customizable user interface, window layout and shortcuts.
Pricing: Free.
Pros: It doesn’t cost anything to use Blender. Also, advanced animation and rendering tools make it fit for both beginners and expert users.
Cons: Blender has a very steep learning curve as it’s packed with so many features. Beginners will be overwhelmed and might need to spend hours on tutorials before getting it right.
Ideal for: Animators, engineers, scientists, artists, students.
Artweaver Free
- Supports layers
- A wide selection of brushes
- Child-friendly interface
- Plug-in support
- Free edition includes limited tools
Verdict: Artweaver Free is one of the many free drawing software available for use on the Internet. It is a Wacom based drawing program that allows you to draw on screen as if you were using a pen and paper. While it can be used on any computer with an Internet connection, you will need a Wacom driver to use this drawing software.
One of the best features about Artweaver Free is that it allows you to share your work with others. This is done by right clicking on a drawing in the Properties and clicking “shared”. Now other people can see your drawing and they too can add their own comments and suggestions. This way your artwork has a chance to be seen by many and if it is good, it will spread across the Internet and be used as real art.
Microsoft Paint 3D
- Plays back the creation process
- Wide choice of paint effects
- Online sharing of 3D images
- Doesn’t extrude 2D objects
Verdict: If you are an artist who likes to create art with the utmost perfection and is on the lookout for the best free drawing software for Wacom, then you should be very pleased with Microsoft Paint. This is one of the best drawing software available to artists of all ages because of its high quality of drawing features, and excellent resolution and color rendition.
You can get the best free art software for Wacom from the internet, but before you go out and purchase any Wacom drawing software, you should know some of the best tricks that you can use in order to save money.
MyPaint
- Designed for graphics tablets
- Multiple platform
- Extensive brush creation
- Steep learning curve
MyPaint
Verdict: MyPaint is a Paint compatible free drawing and painting software for Wacom tablets. What is great about MyPaint is that it is simple to use. MyPaint is also wonderful for those who like to dabble in digital art but do not wish to purchase or download special software packages.
MyPaint is a great free drawing and painting software for those who enjoy art and drawing as well as those who have experience with art software. In other words, anyone can use MyPaint and it is a great option for the novice artists and those who are just starting out in the world of drawing and painting. If you enjoy drawing or painting and wish to enhance your abilities, then MyPaint is a great option.
Microsoft Fresh Paint
- Realistic blending effects
- Easy to learn
- Good for touchscreens
- Has no support for multiple layers
Microsoft Fresh Paint
Verdict: Fresh Paint is Microsoft’s latest offering for the home computer art software crowd. Many of the other products in this niche have limited functions and limit the artistic freedom that many artists need to create truly unique works. This tablet drawing software has a few features that set it apart from its competitors and are worth checking out if you are an artist or would like to be.
Features include a large number of brushes to choose from, a large variety of drawing tools, a large variety of colors, and even support for digital paint-ings and texturing. This Microsoft product is definitely geared more toward the home user, but it does have what professional graphic artists need to create professional results.
Conclusion:
Whether you want to draw or paint digitally, Or maybe you just need software to manipulate photos, there is a great selection of free graphic tablet software out there – and they don’t cost anywhere near as much as those paid-for options.