How To Draw Comics

Review by eFreeware

Most people who want to draw comics stall at the same place: they can picture the character, but the blank page wins. Copying a finished illustration doesn't help much either, because it skips the order of the strokes. A guided breakdown, where each stage adds a few lines to the last, is a far gentler way in, and that is the need How To Draw Comics addresses.

The app comes from Creative APPS. The pitch is that no previous experience or skill is required, and that following the steps is enough to end up with a drawing you are happy with. It has been on Google Play since June 2017, and its 4.3 average across more than 18,000 ratings suggests the approach has connected with a large number of users.

Built for beginners and casual doodlers

The clearest audience here is someone who has never drawn seriously and wants a structured way to start. Because the lessons are broken into stages, you follow along from the start. You follow what is on screen, one step at a time, and the drawing assembles itself as you go.

It also fits people who draw purely for relaxation. The subject matter is comic characters, which keeps the sessions light and recognizable rather than academic. If your goal is to sketch a favorite hero or villain well enough to show someone, that is squarely what the app is set up to deliver.

Where it is less suited is to anyone hoping to develop an individual style or learn anatomy in depth. The lessons teach you to reproduce characters that are already drawn, which is a different exercise from inventing your own. Treat it as practice for your hand and eye rather than a course in comic art, and the scope makes sense.

Step-by-step lessons and coloring

The core of the app is a library of comic drawing pictures, each presented as a sequence of stages you work through. The developer describes the steps as detailed, and the promise is that finishing them leaves you with a complete drawing. That staged format is what makes the app usable for a beginner.

Once a drawing is done, the app moves into coloring. The developer frames this as learning plus free creation, and it is the part that turns a lesson into something more personal. The staged format is a reasonable way to keep the exercise from feeling mechanical.

There is also a set of drawing tools for working on the picture as you like. For a free app in this category, that combination of guided lessons and open drawing is the sensible pairing.

What it costs and what comes with it

How To Draw Comics is free to download and carries an Everyone content rating, so it is not aimed at adults only. That makes it easy to try without much commitment.

Two things sit alongside the free download. The app contains ads, and it offers in-app purchases.

I would treat the purchases as an unknown until you see them for yourself rather than assuming anything about what is locked away.

How it compares with other drawing options

The obvious alternative is a general-purpose drawing app, the kind that hands you a blank canvas and a full set of brushes. Those reward people who already know what they want to draw, and they can be intimidating if you don't. How To Draw Comics trades that freedom for direction, which is the whole point of choosing it.

Video tutorials are the other route, and they have their own appeal: you can watch a hand move across the page in real time. The trade-off is that you are pausing and rewinding constantly, and the video decides the pace. A staged lesson you advance yourself is a calmer format, particularly on a phone.

Printed how-to-draw books sit somewhere in between, and they tend to be better for people who want to work away from a screen. If your drawing time is already tied to your phone, though, an app that keeps the reference and the drawing surface together removes a step. That convenience is the main argument for this one over the alternatives.

A straightforward starting point for comic drawing

How To Draw Comics does one job and does it without pretension. It gives beginners a staged path to drawing recognizable comic characters, adds coloring and free drawing on top. The install numbers and the 4.3 average suggest that formula works for a lot of people.

The caveats are the ones that come with the format. Ads and in-app purchases are part of the package. Neither is a flaw so much as a description of what it is: a practice tool, not an art school.

If you have been meaning to start drawing and keep putting it off because you don't know where to begin, this is a low-risk way to break the habit. If you already draw confidently and want to develop your own characters, the guided lessons will feel like a step backward. For everyone in between, it is worth the download.

What's new in version 1.2.2

We just did an update to improve the smoothness and stability of the game, come and experience it! We understand that the performance of the game is crucial to the player's experience, so we invest a lot of time and energy to optimize it. Hope you will like it! Get relaxed now!