I've been using my iPad mini a lot lately, more so than my desktop. I use it for cartooning (above) and animation. I work on several sketching apps but the one I always return to is "Paper" by a studio called 53. I thought I'd put up a few examples of how different artists use that program so you can get an idea of its range.
People even do acrylic-type pictures (above) on this app, but I'm not crazy about the way they look. In my opinion you're better off using a desktop program for something like that.
It's amazing how quickly it lets you can draw scenes like this one (above).
Paper doesn't contain any fonts but it's friendly to funky hand-drawn lettering. In a meeting I'd rather have a real pencil and a real legal pad, but Paper's writing could still be useful for other purposes.
There's (above) that 90s light-hearted style again. If you use Paper you may find yourself drawing and painting in that style because the program strongly supports it. If that's not your thing I wouldn't worry about it. Believe it or not, the program's artistic bias actually helps you to define your own unique style. I guess having something to conceptually bounce off of is actually stimulating.
A caveat: Paper is a wonderful app but it has bugs and its stylus, called "Pencil," doesn't always work like you want it to. Face it, none of the drawing and animating apps are perfect. I still recommend it. The basic app is free and comes with their very best brush tool, so you can't complain about the price. If you don't have a stylus you can use your finger. About a third of everything I've done has been with my finger, even when I have a stylus in my hand.
Lots of people have said that this is the drawing app Steve Jobs would have created if he'd put his mind to it. That's high praise.
