Fashion Sketch Apps I love and recommend:

Fashion illustration apps can be WONDERFUL. I wouldn’t recommend diving into them without ever exploring paper and analog sketching tools as a foundation, but after that I think that everyone could enjoy having a fashion illustration app in their life to create and illustrate.

Don’t forget that I’ve created an entire course on this topic! Since its inception, ABOUT FACES online course for freehand fashion illustration of faces using a few of the best apps—

has grown to included creative sketching processes, projects, more apps, more insights, more support and inspiration than I ever imagined possible in its first year..

I cannot wait to answer your questions and to see what you’ll create inside the private course area.

Timelapse fashion illustration on RePaper app’s “rice paper” ground (available in several tones including this charcoal color) using white line drawing.

1. Imagink/ RePaper by ISKN

Imagink (now RePaper), one of the apps I rely on for fashion sketching is slightly limited. It doesn’t have what some other apps do, (see this article 3 Best Fashion Apps for Fashion Illustration).

But I recommend it.

Because it has things that other apps don’t! Here’s why I love the REPAPER Fashion Sketch APP;

it has lovely paper colors and textures, particularly the “rice paper” that I sketched this design on! It also comes in white and charcoal colored rice paper. So luscious!
there are a limited number of tools and the interface is simple and straightforward, which I think is REALLY important! There is no watercolor tool, so I use the “pastel” for all of my “painting” effects, which you can see in the illustrations above and below.
For line work I use the pencil ( I love that I can choose a #6B soft, dark pencil just like I would in real life!) You can also adjust the thickness or thinnes, Opacity or sheerness, of the pencil and any color in the world you want. Their pencil quality in this app is gorgeous.
Colored pencils are great for rendering your prints and patterns or drawing and coloring.
Fine Marker is in there too for line work, and you can make it larger tip and sheered if you want more of a magic marker coloring effect.

I used REPAPER APP for the Fashion Sketches below:

2. Pret- a- template app

I’m including the Pret a Template fashion sketch app because not EVERYONE wants to sketch anything/ everything FREEHAND.
And Pret a Template has a wonderful collection of Croquis templates that you can use to support your FASHION DESIGN sketching on ipad or even print and use on paper.

There are different sizes and styles of figures that you can pull into OTHER drawing apps to sketch fashion.

even as a very experienced fashion designer and illustrator I’ve found Pret-a-templates art and drawing tools SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE to use.

Yet I totally recommend their croquis templates to anyone who wants templates / doesn’t want to make their own templates like I teach, or who wants to modify an existing one.
They even have sketching templates for shoes, bags, pets, accessories etc. I recommend it to my students as a base for creating a template for your flats or for sketching onto.
If you don’t want to use their ongoing subscription, download the croquis and then keep them for personal use for FLAT SKETCHING and DESIGN DRAWING.

Hey don’t forget You can get some of MY templates when you sign up for email updates in your free creative fashion design bundle download! Just subscribe to get the bundle!

HERE’S HOW PRET-A-TEMPLATE WORKS FOR SKETCHING AND DIGITAL FASHION ILLUSTRATION.

3. Procreate app

I looooove a digital fashion sketching app with very simple easy toolbars. Being able to sketch on impulse without fussing is a top value for me.

And for me, Procreate doesn’t give me that.

A simple user interface keeps you in the intuitive and impulsive side of your brain and that is extremely important to me.

I think it’s not recommendable for beginners as much as the NEXT app I’m going to show you, but it’s good to play around with sometimes. I meet many students who are feeling “at home” on Procreate before I meet them.

Procreate app is livestream-able (***VERY SAD UPDATE: NOT ANYMORE !! THEY TOOK THAT AWAY***) , gives me timelapse videos exports too, and works wtih so many formats – everyone seems to love Procreate, but I don’t recommend it for beginners.

EXAMPLE

However, here are some examples of the results you can get sketching with Procreate as a fashion sketch app!

3. Tayasui Sketches App (Sketches Pro):

Speaking personally, as a fashion designer and illustrator who dug through a pile of apps to find THE ONE that was user friendly, intuitive, and really felt like real art supplies,…...TAYASUI SKETCHES APP IS THE ONE!!!

I couldn’t possibly recommend more highly an app for learning and creating fashion illustrations, especially ones that look and feel like watercolors and pencils (the first two examples below) or markers and ink (the example below that).

5. Autodesk Sketchbook Pro

This is what I consider another overly techy -feeling app for fashion illustration.

UPDATE+++It used to be an app but now it is only available on desktop. You can access endless art supplies. My favorite illustrator who uses this app for incredibly beautiful fashion art is the inimitable VG WAYMER.

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro is a fun fashion sketch app that had a particularly fun feature built in: COPIC MARKER COLORS-Every copic marker color is included inside the app so you can choose from the marker colors instead of using the traditional colorpicker. I’ll share a sample below.

***** this feature no longer is supported buy Autodesk *************update sorry

FASHION ILLUSTRATION WITH DIGITAL MARKERS:

examples using Autodesk Sketchbook

Here is a little video below about the Copic Marker Colors and how that works for a fashion sketch app!

6. Adobe Illustrator Draw App (now Adobe Fresco App)

First thing you need to know: you do not have to pay for this app! You do need an adobe ID to use it but the Adobe ID is FREE. You do not have to have illustrator or creative cloud or anything to use it for your fashion illustrations and design sketches on the ipad..

Most of what I’ve done this year, I’ve done (2018– updating this article now in 2026) using Adobe Draw/ Adobe Fresco as my primary fashion sketch app.

And I tell you , that is a whole other topic….