Quick Poses vs Art Reference
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Quick Poses
This app helps artists improve their drawing skills with timed practice sessions. Users can customize pose durations, select from built-in or custom galleries, and track their progress over time. It's designed to enhance observation, anatomy, and composition skills through gesture drawing.
- Customizable pose durations
- Session time control
- Warm-up delay option
- Built-in and custom galleries
- Gesture drawing focus
- Progress tracking
- Left/right-handed support
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Quick Poses is THE ultimate tool to help artists sharpen their drawing skills by simulating REAL LIFE academic figure drawing sessions. Select your pose duration, choose your favorite photo galleries, and start drawing right away! Train your observation and anatomy skills with Quick Poses. The goal is simple: capture the ESSENCE of each pose within a limited time. As soon as the timer runs out, a new pose appears, keeping you focused and in the flow. At the end of your session, a SUMMARY gives you a clear picture of your progress. Over time, track your improvement in the HISTORY section and see how your skills evolve. This practice, called GESTURE DRAWING, is one of the BEST ways to build confidence, observation accuracy, and dynamic composition. It’s also an excellent warm-up before longer drawing sessions. FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS • CUSTOMIZE pose durations anywhere from 5 SECONDS to INFINITY. • CONTROL your total session time by limiting the number of poses. • ADD a short WARMUP DELAY before each pose to prepare your workspace or materials. • USE your APPLE PENCIL directly on screen, and analyze your sketches after each session. • ACCESS the full TOOL PICKER for longer poses to unleash your creativity with more tools and colors. • SWITCH your drawing side for LEFT or RIGHT-HANDED comfort. • USE iPad MULTITASKING or PICTURE-IN-PICTURE to draw in your favorite app like Procreate with more screen real estate. • APPLY basic IMAGE EFFECTS (monochrome, 2-tones, 4-tones, line overlay, blur) to study poses in a whole new way. • ENJOY 7 BUILT-IN GALLERIES featuring various subjects (people, animals). • ADD your own galleries easily with the integrated GALLERY EDITOR (optional in-app purchase required). • DISPLAY poses in ORDER or RANDOM sequence. • REVIEW your past sessions in the HISTORY SCREEN and MEASURE your progress over time. • EXPORT your best drawings to share, print, or refine further in another app. • YOUR PRIVACY MATTERS – all your data stays on device unless you choose to share it. Master gesture drawing, stay motivated, and see your art grow session after session with Quick Poses.
Art Reference
This app provides digital reference tools for traditional artists working with physical media. It offers features like value studies, gridlines, side-by-side comparison, and composition adjustments to aid in creating accurate and balanced artwork.
- Value study mode
- Gridlines for accurate sketching
- Side-by-side reference and canvas view
- Crop and frame reference images
- Curated starter project collections
- Color harmony experimentation
- Offline functionality
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Artists Reference is made for painters, illustrators, and traditional artists who work with real materials, not pixels. It gives you the digital reference tools you need while you're creating physical art. Key Features - Gallery: Take a photo of your finished work, add a frame, and view them all together in your personal gallery. - Value Study Mode: Instantly view your reference in 7-value scale to see shadows and highlights or greyscale to see tone and contrast clearly. - Gridlines: Helps get your under-sketch down accurately. - Side-by-Side View: Compare your reference and your canvas at the same time, optimized for tablets and stands. - Crop and Frame Tools: Adjust composition and aspect ratio of your reference to match your canvas before you begin. - Collections: Curated starter projects to help you practice and improve, including Animals, Architecture, Botanical, Figure, Landscape, Master Study, Portrait, and Still Life. - Color harmonies: Experiment with color harmonies to define the feeling if your piece and save swatches - Offline Friendly: Works anywhere, even in the studio or outdoors. - Clean, Focused Design: No ads. No clutter. Just the reference tools you need. - All of your artwork is private and only saved in your personal icloud. No artwork is visble to the internet or AI models Made for Traditional Artists Whether you're painting with oils, gouache, watercolor, or charcoal, Artists Reference helps you translate what you see into confident compositions and balanced values. Start with curated Collections to build your skills, or bring your own references for any project. No AI art is used for any of the starter project references in this app. All photos are attributed to the original artists with links to their portfolio.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Art Reference at free against Quick Poses's free with in-app purchases. Art Reference also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months) and review sentiment (100% vs 91%). Quick Poses's advantage is ratings volume (87 vs 4) and iOS requirement (17.6 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Quick Poses sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Art Reference sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Quick Poses against 4.8 for Art Reference. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Quick Poses has 87 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 91% of Quick Poses's written reviews are positive against 100% of Art Reference's.
Quick Poses ships an update every 2 months, Art Reference every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Quick Poses | Art Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (87 ratings) | 4.8 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 90.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 87 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 70 MB | 172 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Frederic Ruaudel | Gil Osborne |
Customer experience
Quick Poses
Art Reference
In-app purchases
Quick Poses
- Long-time user offerFree
- Add Custom User Galleries$5.99
Art Reference
- Lifetime Full Access$14.99








