Designers have been using tablets for drawing for years, but a team of home-grown developers saw huge potential for illustration on the iPad. Hobart's Savage Interactive recently released Procreate, a surprisingly powerful app that not only lets users draw, but use more complex functions like layers and imported brushes.
Savage CEO James Cuda told touch that after seeing the iPad for the first time, he was fascinated by the possibilities.
"People think of the iPad as a gimped version of a computer," says Cuda. "One thing we wanted to do straight away was to make (an app) for professionals, and then work backwards to make it accessible and easy to use, and very iOS in its feeling."
Unlike other illustration apps. Savage studied desktop software like Photoshop,then built Procreate from the ground up using an iOS aesthetic.
"We really looked at how Apple designs. They put the most used things in the interface up front, and the least-used things are down a tier or two. We really tried hard to mimic that style of iOS. Everything's really easy to use, but if you need the power, it's there," he says. "I think it's actually been a bit of an improvement on the desktop."
With the release of the iPad 2, Savage Interactive sees an opportunity to vastly improve Procreate, offering a free update that boosts the canvas size by four times to 1920 x 140S pixels.
"It's pretty amazing what the iPad 2 in particular can pull off. Apple said it was nine times the speed. We thought it was going to be marketing hype. But no. We can categorically say that it's absolutely true. It is an absolute beast," says Cuda.
Despite Cuda's enthusiasm for the digital sketchbook, he still believes artists will be picking up a pencil and paper for a while yet.
"I think you're always going to have real-world materials thot you're going to need to use. When photography came on the scene, everyone said,that's it, painting is dead." he says. "But that's not the case." •
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