Wand

I grabbed my iPad, fired up Wand, and spent a morning sketching a quirky cartoon cat, just to see what this AI-powered app could do. Spoiler: it’s like having a super-smart art assistant who’s maybe a bit too eager to help. Wand, designed for iOS, takes your rough doodles and transforms them into polished illustrations with startling speed. You sketch, tap, and boom, the AI fleshes out your idea with colors and textures you didn’t even know you wanted. It’s thrilling, like watching your napkin sketch turn into a gallery piece, but it’s not without quirks.

The Custom Brush Engine feels buttery smooth with the Apple Pencil, letting you draw with precision that rivals traditional tools. I loved playing with the Preloaded Style Library, applying a comic-book vibe to my cat sketch in seconds. The Regional Iterative Editing feature is a standout, you can tweak just the eyes or background without messing up the whole piece. But, I hit a snag: the app lagged a bit when I pushed it with a detailed sketch, and the lack of multi-layer support (still in development) felt limiting compared to Procreate. Also, if you’re not on iOS, you’re out of luck, no Android or desktop versions here.

What caught me off guard was the fine-tuning feature. You can upload a few images of your art, and Wand trains a private AI model to mimic your style. I tried it with some old sketches, and the results were eerily close to my own hand, a bit like seeing a clone finish your work. Compared to Adobe Fresco, which integrates tightly with Photoshop, or Artbreeder, which is more about mixing existing images, Wand’s strength is its sketch-driven workflow. It’s not as polished as Procreate for full-on illustration, but it’s a creative rocket for quick concepts.

Pricing seems fair, with a free tier and in-app purchases for premium features, though I couldn’t pin down exact costs. It feels in line with Fresco’s subscription model, but Procreate’s one-time fee might be more appealing for some. The app’s secure private models are a plus, keeping your work safe, but the free version limits exports, which stung when I wanted a clean PNG. My cat sketch looked great, but I wished for more control over the AI’s enthusiasm, sometimes it overdid the shading.

Try Wand for quick ideation or to spice up simple sketches. Play with the style library first, and don’t overcomplicate your initial drawings, the AI shines with clear inputs. If you’re a layer junkie, hold off until that feature drops.