ToonSquid vs ArtDeck

ToonSquid is the powerful 2D art and animation studio for your iPad. Its flexible layer system allows you to combine the charm of hand-drawn traditional animation with keyframes that automatically animate layer properties over time. With a library full of beautiful, blazing-fast and fully customizable pixel and vector brushes, animatable effects, a smudge tool, animated text and vector shapes, bones with inverse kinematics, video and audio layers, camera movements, symbols and many more features, ToonSquid makes it easy to bring your vision to life. Traditional Animation - Create hand-drawn frame-by-frame animations - Control how long you want to show each drawing in the timeline - Draw in resolutions of up to 4k Keyframe Animation - Add keyframes to automatically animate layer and effects properties over time - Choose from an extensive list of customizable easing curve presets to create organic motion between keyframes - Easily loop your keyframe animation Powerful Layer System - Define the order and length of each element in your animation using layers and drawings and a flexible timeline - Organize your layers into groups for a clean workflow or to animate multiple layers at once - Use the camera layer to quickly define the visible portion of your animation in the export - Mask layers to other layers, even when their contents are animated - Choose from 27 industry-standard layer blend modes for beautiful compositing effects Fully-customizable Brushes - Draw gorgeous brush strokes with ToonSquid's state-of-the-art digital brush engine - Take full advantage of Apple Pencil's pressure and tilt sensitivity and the iPad Pro's 120Hz display for lag-free drawing - Use vector brushes to create brush strokes that are sharp at every zoom level - Edit the 60+ brush settings and import custom textures to create a brush library that is perfectly tailored to your art style - Blend your strokes together using the smudge tool - Draw in a variety of styles such as sketching, inking, wet mixing, pixel art, and more - Export and share your custom brushes with others - Import your existing library of Adobe® Photoshop® brushes Vector Shapes - Create custom shapes using the path tool by placing and editing each curve control point - Quickly add common vector shapes from the shape library - Import SVG files - Fill and stroke your shapes with beautiful gradients and edit them directly on the canvas - Animate the visible length of a path using its trim properties Animatable Effects - Create character rigs using bones and add inverse kinematics constraints - Create custom meshes to deform pixel layers when they are part of a bone rig - Animate perspective and warp effects - Apply adjustments, blur, pixelation, drop shadow, chroma key, halftone, parallax and more effects Efficient symbol workflow - Split your animation into separate clips that you can then reuse multiple times using symbols - Make edits to an animation clip and immediately see the changes in all of its symbol instances - Use frame markers to speed up your lip-syncing workflow Text - Add text layers and animate their appearance - Import your favorite fonts Color - Use ToonSquid's powerful color picker with plenty of different interfaces to choose the exact colors you need - Create custom color palettes and share them outside the application - Pick colors straight from the canvas using the pipette tool - Fill connected regions quickly with the fill tool Audio and Video - Add audio clips to your timeline and perform lip-syncing animations - Import videos, GIFs and images into your project and work with them through symbols Transform - Animate a layer's position, rotation and scale properties using keyframes - Build transform hierarchies to achieve more advanced movements - Edit your layer's motion path directly on the canvas Numerous Export Formats - Export your work in one of many common file formats such as MP4, MOV, GIF, PNG, JPEG, PSD, and more.

ArtDeck is a reference board for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. Collect images, videos, links, and notes, then arrange and zoom them on an infinite canvas. Make a moodboard or open the built-in tools when you want to analyze value, color, composition, or motion. You can also keep references next to Procreate on iPad or your creative apps on Mac. iCloud sync is optional. CAPTURE NOW, USE IT ANYWHERE See a texture, a color combination, or a striking composition while you're out? Take a photo right inside ArtDeck and drop it on a board. Because your boards sync, it's there on your Mac and iPad, ready next to your design, 3D, or drawing tools. COLLECT FROM ANYWHERE • Shoot photos and video on iPhone and iPad; on Mac, take the photo with the webcam or your iPhone • Import from Photos or Files • Scan a document on iPhone or iPad, or use Continuity Camera on Mac • Save any link as a card, or paste a link to an image, video, or PDF to import it • Drag and drop, paste, or use the Share menu from any other app • Opens all common image formats, plus WebP, AVIF, JXL, HDR, EXR, and SVG. Video, GIFs, and PDFs up to 300 pages • HDR images and video at full brightness on capable screens, for the whole app or per board STUDY WHAT YOU COLLECT Study any image or video frame through the ToolBox's five lenses, without touching the original: • Values: grayscale, a value ladder, and Notan to read your darks and lights • Color: pull a palette from any image, or see its temperature and saturation zones • Composition: overlay grids, test new framings, or check the symmetry • Read: simplify to the big shapes, find where detail piles up, follow the edge hierarchy • Measure: drop plumb lines, read an angle off a snapping guide, and compare two lengths The Analysis panel shows value range, a histogram, hue, saturation, and color distribution. Export a study, or keep a copy on your board. Step through GIFs and video frame by frame, with onion skin and a GIF filmstrip ANNOTATE AND DRAW • Mark up an image, or draw directly: pen, highlighter, and shapes • Draw a stroke, then hold at the end to straighten it ARRANGE IT YOUR WAY • An infinite canvas to drag, scale, rotate, and zoom • Snap to objects and grid; align, distribute, and tidy up • Group and nest, reorder, lock, with undo and redo YOUR BOARDS, EVERYWHERE • The same boards on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, synced through your iCloud • Works fully offline: sync catches up when you're back online • Choose which boards sync • Split View and Stage Manager on iPad • Keep your window on top of the others on Mac YOUR GALLERY • Carousel and grid views of every board • Labels and multi-label filtering • Favorite, archive, rename, or duplicate any board MAKE IT YOURS • Dark, light, and high-contrast themes • Set one theme for the whole app, or one per board • An editor to fine-tune the colors and create your own themes • Import and export themes by file or link ACCESSIBILITY • VoiceOver support across the app, including items on the canvas • Respects Dynamic Type and Reduce Motion • A theme editor that checks color contrast and flags colors that are hard to tell apart EXPORT AND HAND OFF • Export a whole board or just a selection • PNG, JPEG, HEIC, or PDF, up to 8K, with a transparent background where the format allows • Save a whole board as one .artdeck file to back up or hand off TRY IT FREE, KEEP IT FOR LIFE Start with a free, individual 7-Day Trial. It does not renew. Lifetime Access is a one-time in-app purchase, not a subscription. No separate ArtDeck account is required. Keep what catches your eye.