r/Ibispaintx

I usually see people doing the opposite, but after 6 years on Procreate, I decided to switch back to Ibis Paint.

Years ago, when I was drawing on an Android tablet, Ibis Paint was one of my first drawing apps. But once I got an iPad, I immediately jumped onto the Procreate because it was the trendy app that every single digital artist was using at the time.

Don't get me wrong, Procreate is a solid app and I’ve used it for 6 years. But over time, I there were things that started bothering me, I tried to ignore it and just keep pushing through, mostly because I was so used to the interface, but also because I had already paid for the app.

At one point, I even tried Clip studio paint. I actually liked it and I understand the hype around it, but it started lagging on my iPad, and honestly, I just can't deal with monthly subscriptions right now, even it’s not that expensive, so I went back to procreate, but again I couldn’t stand this app anymore.

So, I recently decided to give Ibis paint another chance. I was a bit skeptical, and the first drawing was just a test, nothing I put 100% effort into.

My drawing experience though felt so much more comfortable than Procreate. It’s hard to explain, but on Procreate, no brush ever feels truly "right." Even with stabilization turned completely off, the app still applies this invisible, brush smoothing that makes the lineart feel unnatural to me(I tried several brushes, and even created my own, but the issue was still there)

Another thing I love about Ibis is the Lasso fill tool. Like many other artists, I’ve always hated Procreate lasso tool, but Ibis paint lasso fill is just incredibly fun and fast to use. Of course Ibis is not perfect and there are things I still need to get used to, for example:

-Not being able to use the lasso and selection tools to select and move a specific part of the drawing across all layers at once, I have to merge the layers first, and this is annoying as someone that hate merging layers

-It’s also annoying that the eyedropper tool accidentally activates while I'm drawing with the Apple pencil. Unlike Procreate, there is no option to set the eyedropper shortcut exclusively for finger touch. The only workaround I found is to increase the long press delay or directly selected it from the tools bar.

These are my major issues with the app so far, for the rest I’m loving it and I’m glad I did this switch up. At the end of the day, I’m not saying Procreate sucks. It just really depends on the art style and what the artist is looking for. To me Procreate is good for highly polished, heavily rendered, or painterly art. But for an art style closer manga(like my case) Clip Studio and Ibis Paint are way better at this.

Of course, this isn't a strict rule and it always comes down to personal preference. What do you think?