The Procreate iPad drawing app -- a CNET Editors' Choice pick for 2021 -- costs $10 to download, but its suite of art tools and creative features make it well worth the money. The digital illustration app is accessible whether you're a design professional, a seasoned digital artist or a beginner to the world of digital illustration. I've been using Procreate for a few months and there are still features I'm finding out about that improve my artwork (check out all of the best Procreate tips I've found so far).

Procreate lets you customize gesture controls so the app is ultimately personalized to you. No matter what level of artist you are, Procreate's features like Quickshape, blend mode, layering, alpha locks and clipping masks can add a new level of professionalism to your art.

There's a lot going on in this app, so I wouldn't download it if you're just looking for a place to doodle. For quick reference in the app, check out the official Procreate Handbook. Read our Procreate review.

The Autodesk Sketchbook app is free, but is surprisingly packed with art tools that aren't blocked by paywalls. You can use the free version for seven days and then you'll be asked to make an Autodesk ID, which is also free. It's a little less intimidating than Procreate when you're starting off your digital art journey. When you download the sketch app, it'll give you a quick tutorial of where all the basic tools are.

Autodesk has an extensive, well-organized brush library, and with its customizable brushes, it's easy to adjust settings like brush size, opacity and pressure. Even with a typical learning curve of a new drawing app, the toolbar is pretty easy to figure out. I also liked that, even when extensively zoomed in, the app didn't lose its "drawing" feel by letting you see the pixels in your stroke.

One of my favorite parts of Sketchbook is the focus on making the transition from paper to screen easy. You might've done cool sketching in a notebook, and with Autodesk, you don't have to redraw the sketch in the app. Your camera doubles as a scanner so you can import your art. The image imports with a transparent background so you can immediately get to work in the app.

Art Set 4 is one of the more basic, realistic drawing apps. It's free to download, but most of its tools are unlocked through the Premium Pro features, which cost $10. This app would be best if you're brand new to digital illustration -- it feels similar to having physical tools and paper in front of you. I love its user interface. If you're overwhelmed by the idea of going into a more complex app like Procreate or Autodesk, the Art Set 4 drawing tool is a good one to get started with. It's also fun if you just want to doodle.

Something I really like about Art Set 4 is the ease with which even the free tools work together in a piece. It's also nice that you can swap between multicolored paper styles like canvas and the rough surface of heavyweight, cold press sheets for watercolor. You can choose burlap styles, cardboard and grids without messing up a drawing you've already done.

When you explore the app, any items that require Premium Pro will be locked. If you tap on a locked item, Art Set will ask if you want to upgrade and unlock everything. Premium gives you full access to over 150 brushes, 3D paint, fluid watercolor, the ability to layer and use masks, enable a "wet canvas," drawing guides like symmetry, shapes, filling and dozens of other ways to customize your workspace.

Built from the same back end as its award-winning desktop version, Affinity Designer for iPad is a vector drawing program that's fully optimised for iOS, including Touch controls and Apple Pencil support. Our testing appreciated the fact it can support huge multi-artboard canvases with as many layers as you could possibly want, and you can zoom to over one million per cent. We also loved the UI – find out more in our Affinity Designer for iPad review.

Affinity Designer supports both CMYK and RGB, and has a full Pantone library in the colour swatch panel, meaning it's ideal for creating both digital and printed art. You can export to a range of formats, including JPG, PNG, PDF and SVG, and there are over 100 brushes available, in styles including paints, pencils, inks, pastels and gouaches. In short, this is one of the few drawing apps for iPad that's squarely targeted at the professional market.

Artrage is all about allowing artists to create art on the iPad in a hands-on, realistic way. You can paint directly onto the screen or apply a glob of paint with one tool and smear it around with another. There's a variety of canvas presets and paper options, plus a wide array of brushes, pencils, crayons, rollers, and pastels.

When we tested Artrage (see our Artrage 5 review here), we loved the dedicated watercolour brush option, and its easy-to-navigate UI. We found it mega-easy to change brush sizes, bring up the colour picker, work with layers and blend/smudge different elements together, and we love the simple-to-navigate UI.

Artrage Vitae has since been released so there is even more to love, including larger tools and canvases, a cloner tool, and real colour blending.

No digital application and tablet screen will give you the real feel of working with pastels and charcoal, but drawing apps for iPad are not looking to replace feel – they are designed to mimic the effect, and that is what iPastels does so well. Plus, you don't get messy fingers.

It is impressive how well the app replicates some aspects of pastel drawing, including soft pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils, and realistic colour blending using your finger on the screen just like you would on paper. One downside is that you have to stop drawing when you want to adjust the size and pressure of your tool, but there are plus sides – including the ability to correct mistakes quickly and simply.

For that reason and more, iPastels is a great app to use if you want to try out compositions before beginning a real painting – or just for a bit of fun. It has Apple Pencil support, and the upgrade to Pro features costs $4.99/£4.99.

If you're new to digital art and so after a brilliant-but-basic drawing app for your iPad, look no further than MediBang Paint for iPad. When we reviewed it, we found Medibang to be an easy-to-use program with similar features to Photoshop, including layers, with the ability to add styles and a handy brush editor. In fact, MediBang is full of brilliant drawing and painting tools – so much so that it's hard to believe it's free. See our Medibang review here.

Compatible with iOS 11 and above, if you want to create professional-looking artwork but you are on a budget, this is the iPad drawing app for you.

Zen Brush 2 is one of the drawing apps for iPad that emulates the feel of drawing with traditional Japanese calligraphy brushes. Our testing found it has a smooth and fluent drawing engine, and although our Zen Brush review describes its limited features, we also know it is par for the course with such a narrow usage and that's okay.

Zen Brush 2 has a gallery feature that enables you to save your work in progress, as well as a lovely ink dispersion effect to give your drawings an added feeling of depth. There's support for pressure-sensitive styluses, including Apple Pencil, and best of all you're no longer restricted to black ink – you can use red ink too.

Created specifically for professionals, Concepts is an advanced sketching and design app. It features infinite canvas and organic brushes, a fluid and responsive vector drawing engine, and intuitive precision tools, all tailored for a natural-feeling drawing experience. Whether you’re an architect, product designer, illustrator or visual thinker, you can explore, iterate and share your designs anywhere you go.

Concepts is compatible with iOS 12.4 and later, and supports the iPad Pro (2018) and second-generation Apple Pencil. Double-tap tool switching is supported, plus you can customise how the double-tap manifests itself.

Artstudio Pro for iPad is the successor to ArtStudio – a legacy version of which is still available for $4.99/£4.99. The new version has been optimised for Apple Pencil, and claims to be 5-10 times faster than ArtStudio.

There are new and improved tools, which include 27 blending modes, over 100 built-in brushes and the ability to import all types of formats, including ABL brushes. There are also various different canvas sizes and options that include layers, layer masks, filters and effects. With an active community and plenty of features to play around with, we think this is a great choice for artists.

Another full-featured desktop paint app that's now on the iPad, Clip Studio Paint Ex is great for drawing comics and manga, and it can also be used to create any kind of digital art. It's also one of the few drawing apps for iPad that brings the feel of traditional drawing to the digital space, making this the perfect app for creating your illustrations and sketches while on the go.

This app comes packed with drawing tools such as pencils, markers, calligraphy pens and air brushes. And because the drawing engine works so well with the Apple Pencil, you'll have a full range of pressure-sensitive dynamics to get your linework perfect. Another bonus is when you sign up for Clip Studio Paint EX subscription, you get three months free. Check out our list of the best Clip Studio Paint tutorials here.

Legendary artist David Hockney has been spotted using the Brushes app when creating art on the iPad. It's an oldie but a goodie, designed specifically for Apple's tablet and now with the 'Redux' suffix – and it's free and open-source.

Using a basic toolbar at the bottom of the screen, you can bring up a colour wheel/picker, work with layers and switch between various brushes. Best of all, perhaps, Brushes is fast and responsive to the touch so it's easy to work quickly. A useful feature is the ability to record each brush stroke, enabling you to play back exactly how you created each piece of iPad art via the Brushes viewer.

Sketch Club has a great set of tools for creating beautiful digital art, which is why it's a valuable addition to our drawing apps for iPad list. The app has a unique set of flexible digital brushes (and more can be made), pens, vector tools, old school pixel art, and fun procedural tools.

Sketch Club has an uncluttered user interface, with lots of settings to customise the app to your own unique preferences. A particularly great feature of this app is the integrated online community. Here you can upload your sketches to let others rate and comment on your work, as well as enter daily challenges and fun weekly competitions.