SketchBook Pro 7
Autodesk’s art software is both liberating and amazing – once you get your head around its interface…
Price £50 (upgrade £40.25)
ACompany Autodesk utodesk’s SketchBook Pro app has become such a huge hit on tablets that it’s easy to forget it began its life as a desktop program. The latest version reminds us that it’s still very much alive and well on large and unwieldy computers and, in fact, better than ever.
However, there’s a bit of a learning curve, especially if you’ve never used SketchBook Pro before. The interface is a little too simplistic in appearance, with no labels and lots of slightly confusing colour wheels and menus. There are also two moveable ‘pucks’ that hover above the canvas. At first these look like colour selections for your primary and secondary brushes, and indeed, one enables you to choose
December 2014
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Another slightly odd element for those new to SketchBook is the Lagoon, a quarter-circle menu that gives you quick access to essential functions and features. Access it and the software will resize itself, you’ll have quadrilateral symmetry turned on, and you’ll be drawing with a brush as big as your face – until you get the hang of it.
Yet once you grasp its workings, SketchBook Pro 7 is nothing short of revelatory. It’s a piece of software that looks and works like no other, and the minimalist approach means that it feels open and freeing, and your art becomes more organic as a result.
If you’re an old hat at using SketchBook Pro you’ll feel right at