Selections are always difficult, but version 7 offers some new selection capabilities with the addition of Polyline and Magic Wand. Strokes will snap to the grid as you lay out lines in perspective. SketchBook Pro now offers intuitive guides for 1-point, 2-point, 3-point and fisheye perspectives so you can adjust vanishing points and horizon lines on or beyond the canvas.
A standalone license costs $65.Ĭalling up the Fisheye perspective, alongside 1-, 2-, and 3-point perspectives from a contextual menu. The paid version gives you access to SketchBook for both desktop platforms and will unlock features in future versions of the SketchBook app for iOS and Android.
If you’re an existing subscriber, your payments should stop automatically for the desktop and iOS editions, although you’ll need to cancel your Google Play subscription manually.Anyone can start using the desktop SketchBook software for free. The “starter edition” provides tools to create basic drawings and acts as an introduction to the software for new users.Ī free SketchBook membership gives you SketchBook Essentials, a suite of tools featuring layer management, a full color palette, brush customization, dynamic symmetry and ruler tools for advanced drawings and illustrations.īeyond that, a paid membership of either $24.99 per year or $2.99 per month makes available SketchBook Pro 7 with all the new tools such as the Flipbook mode, Perspective Guides and Distort Transform features, and enhanced tools such as the layer editor with blending modes and layer grouping and improved selection tools.
Updated 6 February 2018: Autodesk has released an update removing the need to log into an Autodesk account to use SketchBook, making it possible to use the software without an internet connection. The mobile versions can be installed in the usual way.
To use them for longer than seven days, you’ll need an Autodesk ID, although you can register for one for free. The desktop versions are free to download.
The mobile editions are available for Android 4.0.3+ and iOS 10.0+, and are version 4.1 and 4.3, respectively.
SketchBook 8.6 is available for Windows 7+ (there is a separate Windows 10 edition) and macOS 10.12+. The mobile editions are also well regarded, with both Android and iOS editions currently outscoring Adobe’s Photoshop Sketch on Google Play and the Apple App Store. Recent reviews praise the software’s shallow learning curve, contextual interface, and streamlined workflow.
Those robust capabilities include the standard features you would expect in a professional tool: a choice of natural media brush types, image-editing tools, layers, tablet support and PSD export. Streamlined design workflow and well-regarded mobile editions While “not all functionality” will end up in the free edition, users will “continue to enjoy the robust capabilities of SketchBook and benefit from ongoing enhancements, free of charge”. Still being developed actively, at least for enterprise usersĪlthough SketchBook is now free to individual users, Autodesk continues to offer enterprise licences of the software, aimed at studios that need multiple seats of the software, for $85/year.Īccording to the company’s FAQs document, SketchBook is “not being retired” and will continue to be developed “to enable designers, architects, and animators to capture conceptual art and designs”. The mobile apps were free, though it took an in-app payment of $4.99 to unlock the pro tools. Over time, it evolved into a more general-purpose package for sketching and illustration, with Autodesk introducing a consumer edition and mobile versions, and eventually dropping the Pro edition entirely in 2017.īy the time SketchBook 4.0 for iOS and Android were released last year, the desktop version was rental-only, with a subscription to the entire product family costing $29.99/year. Originally developed by Alias, and acquired by Autodesk along with Maya, the software began life as SketchBook Pro, a streamlined sketching tool aimed at concept artists and product designers. The company will continue to sell paid-for Enterprise licences for studios needing multiple seats of SketchBook, and says that the software will continue to be developed.Ī robust sketching tool with roots in professional concept design Autodesk has made SketchBook, its professional digital sketching software, available free on all platforms: Windows and Mac desktops and Android and iOS mobile devices.