Autodesk Sketchbook (Mac/Win)

Sketchbook is a software that was released for free a short while ago. It used to be a paid application and in its Pro version it still is, but the basic version is now free (you need to create an account though to use it).

And — oh boy — you really feel that it was a commercial product, but in a very good way.

Its basic focus is like the name says is to sketch. And at this, it really excels.

The user interface has only tools that help you draw, sketch and paint. Not much to distract you from this main purpose.

The performance of the brush strokes is flawless. From the moment you set your brush on the canvas, it just flies and feels natural. There is no noticeable delay for me. The brush customization is not as extensive as in something like Photoshop, or Krita, or some other programs focused on painting. But it still has a good collection of brushes and you can make a few adjustments to them (like changing brush tips, or feedback to pen pressure).

I used Photoshop in the past, and it was my favorite for drawing and sketching. It felt comfy, it had pretty cool brush tools. But I think, the focus and simplicity of Sketchbook makes it my new favorite tool for drawing and sketching and doing short animations.

Now finally a few words to the animation feature of it. I believe the animation feature was first only in the pro version, but now it is also available in the free version. It is a bit hidden though.

To use the animation feature you need to go to “File > New Flipbook”. Then it basically opens for you a new canvas with a few limitations. For example, you will have only 4 layers—Foreground, Midground, Background, Background Color. You can paint only on 3 of them. And animate only 2 of them.

That’s quite a bummer since it restricts pretty much the complexity of your animations. For example, if you want to make a sketch, and then paint over it to do the final lines. That’s it right there — you used your 2 animation layers! So you either have to do the sketch on the same layer or no sketch at all, draw your final lines. If you want some animated action in the background, well it’s not impossible, just very, very inconvenient with only 2 layers.

Another thing is, you cannot rename these layers, change their opacity or their order. So if you want to draw something on top of your foreground layer, and you didn't think about that before. You are out of luck. You either have to draw really over it, in a destructive action. Or copy every frame down one layer. Frame by frame.

That all seems like very harsh criticism. Clearly Sketchbook was not created with animation as its main feature. But still, it hurts a bit to have only these rudimentary features included since I really like the look and feel of the application as a whole.

So the main selling points for me to still have it as kind of a favorite here is the speed that you can get up and running. You just open up the application, start a new file and can animate away. It has a robust timeline, onion-skinning, and playback, framerate settings to support basic animation needs.

Overall still a recommendation, it’s the software that gets me productive the fastest.

Example Animations:

This is composed of about 6 separate animations—all done in Sketchbook.

Summary:

If you just want something to get started or create simple animations, with a minimal amount of setup — This is it. You can jump right in. It’s performant and focused on the creation process. If you plan to do more complex animations, with multiple animated layers, you will hit a wall pretty quick (rather try Krita).

Pros:

+ Best performance (brushes very smooth/low latency)

+ Easiest start

+ Intuitive user interface (you can get up and running in a minute)

+ Essential drawing tools easily accessible

+ Extensive and customizable brush collection

+ Basic onion skins

+ Export to GIF and MP4

+ Import image sequence

Cons:

- only 2 animated layers (+1 static background layer, +1 static color layer)

- no control over layer blending, opacity or other properties (only hide/show)

- timeline manipulation limited (moving frames on the timeline etc.)

- a maximum of 1000 frames