Free digital painting application for macOS

Create comics, illustrations, and animations.

Velika is a full-featured digital painting application for complete visual projects. It starts on macOS, with a cross-device roadmap that keeps your creative workflow familiar while designing the interface natively for each screen—not shrinking a desktop UI onto a phone.

Professional brushes included · No account required · Local project files

Velika professional painting workspace with brushes, layers, and color tools
Product status
Community preview
Current platform
macOS
Core painting
Free
Project storage
Local by default

A better production workflow

One project should not feel like five different apps.

Most drawing tools are organized around one canvas at a time. Velika is designed for the whole visual project—from the first sketch and model sheet to pages, storyboards, revisions, and final delivery.

One connected workspace

Keep sketches, pages, model sheets, storyboards, and references inside the same visual project.

Characters stay consistent

Pin the visual rules that matter—costumes, proportions, palettes, locations, and scene notes.

Everything stays editable

Preserve layers, masks, selections, and revisions instead of accepting a flattened result.

Built for long sessions

Customize shortcuts, presets, panels, and pen behavior around the way you actually draw.

Velika project references and character notes beside the painting canvas

Project Memory

Keep the character sheet beside the canvas.

Characters, scene notes, world rules, and visual decisions remain attached to the project, so the next page starts with the same understanding as the last one.

The all-in-one comic studio

Everything around the drawing, already in the room.

Velika is being built for the whole comic project: the brush you start with, the pose you reference, the background you construct, the page you letter, and the story you keep consistent.

These visuals show product direction. The current community preview focuses on free, local painting.

Product concept · in the roadmap

Thousands of brushes, curated—not dumped into a store.

Pencils, inks, tones, watercolor, gouache, texture, and finishing tools should be ready when the canvas opens.

  • Purpose-built sets for sketch, ink, flat, paint, and finish
  • Honest stroke previews, favorites, and project-specific sets
  • Local access first; marketplace hunting stays optional
Velika concept for a built-in library of ink, paint, pencil, and texture brushes

Product concept · in the roadmap

Pose the scene, not the rig.

Start from useful figures, hands, paired actions, and camera angles, then adjust the reference without leaving the drawing workspace.

  • Prebuilt body types, hands, expressions, and paired poses
  • Direct posing with camera, perspective, and lighting presets
  • Place the result as a reference, guide, or editable line layer
Velika pose-studio concept with two drawing mannequins and a shelf of pose presets

Product concept · in the roadmap

Backgrounds that stay editable drawings.

Build scenes from a licensed library of interiors, streets, rooms, props, tones, and perspective setups—then keep drawing over every part.

  • Curated locations and props ready inside the project
  • Perspective, line, tone, and depth remain adjustable
  • Reuse locations across pages without rebuilding the scene
Velika background-library concept with editable city perspective and environment thumbnails

Create end to end

From first sketch to final sequence.

A professional art tool for the three forms that visual storytellers move between every day.

Illustration

Sketch, ink, paint, composite, and finish with a deep brush and layer system.

Comics

Plan pages, keep model sheets close, and move through sequential work without losing the drawing flow.

Animation

Move from painted key poses to frame-by-frame animation without changing creative tools.

A serious painting engine

The brush should disappear under your hand.

Natural brush response, precise pen input, freehand inking stabilizers, layers, masks, color management, and familiar PSD workflows stay at the center of Velika.

Expressive brush engines
Layers, masks & blending
Stabilizers & pen assistants
Non-destructive revision
See the complete toolkit
Velika brush editor with brush presets and pressure controls
Velika running on a Mac-connected professional pen display

One workflow · Native to every screen

Not a desktop port in your pocket.

Velika starts with a precise macOS and pen-display experience. Its cross-device roadmap carries the same projects, brushes, and creative logic across desktop, tablet, and phone while adapting navigation, panels, dialogs, and touch targets to each device. A phone build ships only when the canvas remains spacious and every action stays reachable.

macOS preview now · Windows and Linux planned · touch-first tablet and phone experiences planned

Free by default

Start drawing before creating an account.

Open Velika and paint. The core drawing workflow is free, local, and ready whenever inspiration arrives.

No login for painting

Create, save, and reopen local projects without signing in.

Professional brushes included

Start with a broad professional toolkit, then tune and organize it around your own hand.

Editable by default

Keep artwork layered and revision-ready throughout the production process.

Long projects stay organized

Bring pages, references, characters, and scene notes into one coherent project.

Guides

Answers for people choosing a drawing studio.

These notes explain what Velika ships today, what remains roadmap work, and when Clip Studio Paint, Krita, or Photoshop is the better current choice.

Clip Studio Paint alternative

Clip Studio Paint alternative for comics and illustration

A factual look at Velika as a Clip Studio Paint alternative—what CSP already does well, what the Velika macOS preview ships today, and what remains roadmap work.

Read guide

free drawing software Mac

Free drawing software for Mac

Velika is a free macOS drawing app for comics, illustration, and animation. No account is required for core painting. Windows and Linux builds are still planned.

Read guide

drawing app without account

Drawing app without an account

Velika lets you draw on macOS without creating an account. Local projects stay on the device. Compare this no-login painting loop with subscription and marketplace tools.

Read guide

Questions

Start with a blank canvas, not a commitment.

Is Velika free?

Yes. The core desktop drawing workflow is free and does not require an account. Optional connected services may have separate limits or plans later.

Can I paint completely offline?

Yes. Local drawing, layers, brushes, and project saving form the default offline loop. Nothing is uploaded merely because you opened a canvas.

What makes Velika different?

Many drawing apps focus on one image at a time. Velika is designed around complete visual projects, keeping pages, character references, storyboards, scene notes, and editable artwork connected.

Which platforms are supported?

The current community preview focuses on macOS, with Windows and Linux on the desktop roadmap. Velika is not available for phones yet: a phone release must use touch-first adaptive layouts, keep every dialog and action reachable across screen sizes and orientations, and preserve useful canvas space instead of squeezing the desktop UI onto a small screen.

Can I keep using layered artwork?

Yes. Velika is designed around editable layers and project files, with common layered interchange formats forming part of the compatibility strategy.

Community preview

Draw the next page with Velika.

Join the early Velika community and help shape a professional drawing app made for complete visual projects.