Motion Brushes · For iPad, iPhone, Mac & Apple Pencil

Paint a stroke.
It keeps moving.

Doodly Doodle is built on Motion Brushes: seven real media, each brush with a motion of its own, and smoke, rain and fireflies that follow your line. Water ripples, grass sways, the page breathes. No keyframes, no timeline. Just painting.

Download on the App Store Free for iPad, iPhone and MacSee what you can make

On the App Store for iPad, iPhone and Mac · Free to start · Plus for CA$9.99, once

Recorded in the app, sped up: Dragon, an ink drawing, painted again over it with the nine brushes it was made with, each picked from the wheel. Each mark's path is played back from the original painting.
Made for Apple PencilPaintings saved on your deviceNo account, no ads, no subscription

Art, brought to life

A little movement.
A whole new feeling.

Illustrations brought to life in Doodly Doodle: each one is an image layer, and every moving wash and line is painted over it in the app.

Mullein

The ink outlines of the flowers ripple as if in a breeze, and drops of colour drift around the spike.

  • Image layer
  • Ink · Breezy ripple
  • Watercolor · Wave
Open this painting

Dragon

Flame-coloured washes flicker along the dragon’s back and mane, and its pen line redraws itself on every held frame, like hand-drawn animation.

  • Image layer
  • Watercolor · Wave
  • Pen · Random redraw
Open this painting

Bodhidharma

Colour moves through the robe and the glow around it, and the lines of the face redraw themselves.

  • Image layer
  • Watercolor · Wave
  • Pen · Random redraw
Open this painting

Carp

Clouds roll and the water churns as the carp leaps; the ink of its scales and the splashes stays alive.

  • Image layer
  • Watercolor · Wave
  • Ink · Random redraw + Shiver
Open this painting

The original illustration is an imported image; the strokes painted over it are editable. Download a .doodly to open it in the app.

01 / What you can make

Four things to make.
All of them alive.

Every Motion Brush is a medium, its marks and a motion. Paint with one and the stroke keeps going after you lift: no animation to set up, nothing to keyframe.

Moving illustrations

Paint a scene that breathes. Watercolor that blooms, ink that feathers, grass that sways, smoke that curls and fireflies that drift, each from one stroke of a Motion Brush.

Paint your first scene

Moving comics and books

Lay out a page from over seventy comic, manga, strip and storyboard layouts, paint each panel alive, and add pages to make a book. Share it as a moving web page, an ebook for Apple Books or a PDF.

Lay out a comic

Coloring books that come alive

Paint illustrated books by number, colour them freely, or bring your own PDF. Paint stays inside the lines it starts in, and every stroke can sway, shimmer or glow. Five picture books and three single pictures, made for painting by number, come with the app: two books and the single pictures are free, and the first page of every other book; their line art was made with AI assistance.

Paint by number

Learn and practise

Short lessons on every brush and effect: trace a small scene with the tool it teaches, then press Play and watch it move. Then tracing practice a few minutes a day, from lines and ellipses to boxes, cylinders and perspective, each with a score and one tip, and a streak that forgives a missed day. Badges for practice, drawing days and strokes into the millions, if you want them.

Start practising

And paint on one page with a friend: Draw together uses SharePlay.

Nature, page 1, by number in Color: number 4, the lake, is chosen and the rest of the page dims; the page's numbers line up above the steps Base, Darks, Highlights and Ripples, and the lake is washed in blue.
Nature, by number: the lake’s Ripples step in hand.

02 / A gentle way in

Paint by number.
Then watch it move.

The books that come with the app are made to paint by number: five books of pictures, from animals to seasons, and three single pictures, each built around something that moves. They open in Color, a simple screen with a number in every area. Tap a number and all its areas are chosen; tap an area and it paints itself in as a painter would: a base, darks away from the light, highlights toward it, and a brush that moves, so the lake ripples and the leaves rustle. Or take Brush and paint each step yourself; paint stays inside the number’s areas wherever the stroke starts.

It is a gentle way into painting: one step at a time, you see how a painting is built in layers of colour, and the page comes alive as you go. Switch to the Studio at any time for every brush, layer and effect on the same page. Rather choose your own colours? Start the same book as a plain coloring book, or turn the numbers off on any page. Every book has music of its own, changing with the picture.

How paint by number works

Free, and every step uses a Free brush.

03 / Every medium moves

Seven media.
Each with a life of its own.

Watercolor that blooms and dries, ink that feathers into the paper, pen, pencil, charcoal, pastel and marker. Choose one on the stroke wheel, give the brush a motion, and draw.

  1. Watercolor Ripple
  2. Ink Wave
  3. Pen Random redraw
  4. Pencil Shiver
  5. Charcoal Stop motion
  6. Pastel Orbit
  7. Marker Sway

04 / Motion and effects

Every motion, every effect.
In any medium.

Forty-eight motions and Still: pick one by watching it move on the wheel, and every stroke you draw carries it, or stack several. Change your mind later: select strokes already painted to set them moving, give them more or less motion, or hold them still. Effects are marks with a life of their own, in families from fire and smoke to weather, water and magic, each painted in one colour a stroke and built up in layers, like paint. See any of them in any medium.

Show

Medium

  1. Still
  2. Wave
  3. Ripple
  4. Ribbon
  5. Flutter
  6. Stretch
  7. Sway
  8. Swing
  9. Bounce
  10. Orbit
  11. Drift
  12. Wind
  13. Wiggle
  14. Crawl
  15. Random redraw
  16. Shiver
  17. Stop motion
  18. Zigzag
  19. Spin
  20. Heartbeat
  21. Curl
  22. Whip
  23. Squash & stretch
  24. Bob
  25. Breathe
  26. Buoyant
  27. Nervous float
  28. Breezy ripple
  29. Swimming
  30. Slither
  31. Feather float
  32. Living pulse
  33. Jelly
  34. Spring
  35. Pluck
  36. Surge
  37. Counterwave
  38. Accordion
  39. Recoil
  40. Shuffle
  41. Tick
  42. Rosette
  43. Spiral
  44. Teardrop orbit
  45. Square orbit
  46. Travelling folds
  47. Sidewinder
  48. Hop
  49. Tremolo
A quiet breeze · Watercolor, pen and Wind, rendered by Doodly Doodle.

05 / A painting that moves

A familiar form.
A little breeze.

Soft watercolor washes, fine pen details, and a gentle breeze. Wind gives this wildflower painting a life of its own; it is the painting the app opens with.

Every stroke stays editable. Open the study to explore the marks and make it your own.

Download the editable study

Open the .doodly file in Doodly Doodle when you have the app.

06 / Inside the app

One wheel for the mark.
The page for the painting.

Everything about the next stroke sits on the stroke wheel under your thumb: medium, brush, size, water, colour and motion. Squeeze Apple Pencil and it comes to the pen.

The iPad workspace in landscape: Night scene open on the page, the stroke wheel in the corner, its layers along the edge and the painting's controls along the top.
A place to paint. Night scene, playing, with its layers beside it.
The stroke wheel's Marks and motion ring unfolded: the groups of marks, effects and motions in a ring around the wheel, and the chosen group's strokes above it, beside a twelve-fold watercolor figure.
Marks and motion, chosen by eye. Every group on one ring; each choice shows as a stroke that moves.
The stroke wheel's colour ring unfolded around the wheel's centre.
Colour at the centre. Tap the wheel's heart; swatches ring around it.

07 / And also

Friendly on the surface.
Capable underneath.

Symmetry

Mirror across either axis, or fold a mark up to twenty-four times. Motion moves the whole figure, so a mandala can breathe as one.

Words, written in paint

Text is drawn along the letters’ centrelines in single-line fonts, as real strokes that can take any medium and move.

Guides

A ruler, an ellipse and a French curve; one- to six-point perspective, isometric and square grids. Snap a wobbly line straight, or a loop round.

Layers that mix

Multiply, Screen, Add, Lighten and Glaze. Hue, saturation, levels, tone curves and blur. Clip a layer to the one below.

Select and change

Tap marks or loop around them to move, scale, rotate or recolour them, or to change how they move. Select every stroke of a colour, a brush or a motion at once.

Paper you can feel

Fourteen papers in any colour, seven of them scanned, including a cold press from a real block of Arches.

A painting that scores itself

Hear the pencil on the paper as you paint, and music that follows your marks and colours. Every painting can play its own soundtrack and export it.

In your language

The app speaks English and sixteen more languages, from Arabic and Hebrew to Japanese, Korean and Thai.

Your files stay yours

Paintings save on your device, with a self-contained copy in Files to move between devices. Export WebP, PNG, HEIF, AVIF, TIFF or layered PSD, video, GIF or a time-lapse.

08 / A few small beginnings

Learn by making a mark.

All guides
01 / Start here

Your first painting

Choose a brush, make a wash, and find your way around the canvas.

Open tutorial ↗ 02 / Give it movement

A line, brought to life

Paint a moving stroke, adjust its character, and leave room for stillness.

Open tutorial ↗ 03 / Add an effect

Smoke, flame and rain

Draw a line and let an effect follow it: mist, embers, leaves or a magic trail.

Open tutorial ↗

Simple pricing

Free to paint.
Plus supports the app.

Every medium, motion and paper, nineteen effect looks, five layers and every export at any size are in Free, with a small Made with Doodly Doodle mark on exports. Nature, Animals at Home and the single pictures are free, and page 1 of every other book.
Plus adds every book, every effect, unlimited layers and exports without the mark, and supports an ad-free app made by one person.

Compare Free & Plus

Plus · One-time purchase

CA$9.99

No subscription. Purchase in the app.

“The time spent making it should matter as much as the finished piece.”

Simon Breslav · The story behind Doodly Doodle ↗

Start with a line.

Download on the App Store Free for iPad, iPhone and Mac