Sketchbook Pro 9 ⚡ < PREMIUM >
Sketchbook Pro 9 features over 200 built-in brushes, grouped into types: Pencils, Inks, Markers, Airbrushes, Paintbrushes, Smudge, and Erasers.
| Shortcut | Action |
|----------|--------|
| B | Brush |
| E | Eraser |
| C | Color Puck |
| L | Layers |
| Ctrl/Cmd + Z | Undo |
| Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z | Redo |
| Spacebar | Radial Menu / Pan (when held) |
| R | Reset canvas rotation & zoom |
| Ctrl/Cmd + T | Transform |
| [ / ] | Decrease / Increase brush size |
iPad users: Two-finger tap = Undo; three-finger tap = Redo.
The most radical aspect of Sketchbook Pro 9 was its user interface. At a time when Adobe products were festooned with floating palettes, tool wells, and modal dialog boxes, Sketchbook offered the "Radial Menu" and a clean, borderless canvas. The philosophy was simple: if you are drawing, you should be looking at your drawing, not at the buttons. The UI could be hidden entirely with a single keystroke, leaving the artist alone with their canvas. sketchbook pro 9
This minimalism was not a lack of features but a curated restriction. Unlike bloated suites that buried essential tools behind sub-menus, Sketchbook Pro 9 placed its core arsenal—pens, pencils, markers, and erasers—front and center. The interface respected the user's flow state, making it arguably the fastest software for capturing a fleeting idea. In a digital landscape that often prioritized technical complexity over creative speed, Sketchbook Pro 9 stood as a rebellious celebration of simplicity.
Why is there a cult following for Sketchbook Pro 9 today? It is the last version you could buy once and own forever.
In 2017, Autodesk announced they were sunsetting the permanent license model and moving to a monthly subscription. Shortly after, they shocked the world by making the app completely free. While "free" sounds great, it came with a catch: Autodesk ceased development on the desktop-specific codebase to unify the app with the mobile version. Sketchbook Pro 9 features over 200 built-in brushes,
If you install the "free" Sketchbook from the Microsoft Store today, you get a good app. But you lose the specific UI feel of Pro 9. You lose the original Synthetic Brushes that didn't rely on CPU particle simulations. You cannot export the old ".tiff" project files that support unlimited undo.
Users who still have their original installer files for Sketchbook Pro 9 guard them like gold. On forums like Reddit’s r/ArtistLounge and ConceptArt.org, you will find threads dedicated to keeping these old licenses alive on Windows 10 and Windows 11 (often requiring a compatibility mode tweak, but working beautifully).
To understand the reverence for Sketchbook Pro 9, you must understand the timeline. Originally developed by Alias (creators of Maya), the software was acquired by Autodesk in 2005. Autodesk transformed it from a simple note-taking app into a professional painting tool. iPad users : Two-finger tap = Undo; three-finger tap = Redo
Sketchbook Pro 9 was launched in late 2015. At the time, Autodesk was pushing a subscription model (SaaS), but version 9 existed in a transitional purgatory: it was the last version available as a perpetual license before the forced move to "Sketchbook" (the freemium model) in 2016.
Why does this matter? Because version 9 has no subscription. You buy it once, you own it forever. This "perpetual license" status is the primary driver of its enduring cult following.