Met up with my local Urban Sketchers group, eager to try out the S Pen on my new Samsung Note 5. I was running late that day, so didn’t really have time for more than the one sketch shown above. I used S Note, an app that comes pre-installed. Overall, I was very happy with how it came out, but I will need to look into some of the various drawing apps if I want to pursue digital sketching on a regular basis. S Note makes switching between different brushes, brush sizes, and colors a little bit cumbersome for sketching from life. It’s not terrible by any means, and I had a real blast playing with it, but the reality is what it is. There are also improvements that could be made on getting the most out of the S Pen’s pressure-sensitivity. It’s an awesome feature, but it only applies to one or two brushes. I looked at Sketchbook from Autodesk, but the free version does not seem to support pressure-sensitivity which is a deal-breaker for me.

In the end, the S Pen is amazing, convenient, and fully eliminates any excuse for not keeping up with your sketchbook drawing- even if you only use it as a backup to your actual paper sketchbook.