Though gaming is likely VR’s most visible use-case so far, it’s capable of so much more. Creatives are using VR for a wide range of artistic endeavors including painting, drawing, 3D modeling & sculpting, animating and more. If you’re interested in exploring your creativity in VR, here’s 11 tools worth checking out.

Updated – August 9th, 2023

First, here’s a quick breakdown of the tools and their capabilities, so that you can hone in on what kind of creative tool you’re looking for the VR headset of your choice. A note about the ‘Feature Focus’ categories below: while some of these tools may support all of the features in limited ways, we marked each based on the workflows they primarily cater to.

Platforms Feature Focus
Quest PC VR PSVR 2 Design Painting Modeling Animation
Open Brush ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖
Quill ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✔
Kingspray Graffiti ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖
Gravity Sketch ✔ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✖
ShapesXR ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✔ ✖
AnimVR ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✔
SculptVR ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖
Masterpiece X ✔ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✔
Adobe Substance 3D Modeler ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖
Vermillion ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖
Painting VR ✔ ✔ ✖ ✖ ✔ ✖ ✖

That’s the short and skinny, below you can check out more info on each tool to get a better idea what they, what skill level they’re built for, and their cost.

Open Brush – Quest, PC VR (free)

Feature Focus: Painting

From the Developer: Open Brush is the community created successor to Tilt Brush, a room-scale 3D-painting virtual-reality application available from Google, originally developed by Skillman & Hackett.

Open Brush lets you paint in 3D space with VR. Unleash your creativity with three-dimensional brush strokes, choosing from a wide palette, of brushes, including stars, light, and even fire. Your room is your canvas. Your palette is your imagination.

Quill – PC VR (free)

Feature Focus: Painting, Animation

From the Developer: Quill by Smoothstep is the VR illustration and animation tool built to empower artists, designers and storytellers. You can create fully animated self-contained VR films ready for release, or use it to produce traditional 3D or 2D artwork, or assets for a game engine. It’s designed to be expressive, precise and to let the artist’s “hand” come through clearly – whether that’s a watercolor style, pencil style, oil painting style or other.

Kingspray Graffiti – Quest, PC VR ($15)

Feature Focus: Painting

From the Developer: Creating amazing street art would be much more fun without the jail time, and now you can! Kingspray is a Multiplayer VR Graffiti Simulator, with battle-tested realistic spray, colors, drips, metallics, and more! Using a wide range of caps, ultra-detailed environments and paint surfaces, unleash your creativity (just see what some of our fans have already created!) and express your style!

Gravity Sketch – Quest, PC VR, (free)

Feature Focus: Modeling, Design

From the Developer: Gravity Sketch is the immersive 3D design tool that empowers you to create, share and collaborate on your best design ideas. Go beyond the bounds of 2D sketching to express yourself in a virtual studio and explore iterations of designs. Communicate design intent with greater clarity, and invite others to help shape your ideas and decision-making.

ShapesXR – Quest (free)

Feature Focus: Design, Modeling

From the Developer: In ShapesXR anybody can start creating in 3D without prior experience within minutes. You can design and prototype your immersive app, invite others to co-create in real-time, or present your ideas using ShapesXR storyboard feature. You can also share your creation with anybody without a VR headset via Web, the Unity plugin or just a picture for your 2D deck.

AnimVR – PC VR ($30)

Feature Focus: Painting, Animation

From the Developer: AnimVR revolutionizes your 3D content production with a powerful timeline, virtual cameras, audio recording, fading & editing, combined with industry standard import and export capabilities, like Alembic Cache and Pixar’s USD. Hand-drawn animation in VR combines the best parts of traditional animation with the advantages of digital content creation tools. Jump right into story telling, without worrying about topology, rigging or skinning. Create environment layouts, 3D story boards, animatics and whole experiences!

SculptVR – Quest, PC VR ($20)

Feature Focus: Modeling

From the Developer: Create sprawling, brilliant worlds and explore them with your friends! Invite your friends to an online game, then race to the finish with hang-gliders, or switch to climbing mode for even more fun. Discover thousands of amazing creations in the interactive gallery then remix them however you want! When you’re happy with your creation, you can upload to the SculptrVR content gallery and let others see the incredible things you’ve made.

Masterpiece X – Quest (Free)

Feature Focus: Animation, Modeling

From the Developer: Masterpiece X is the 3D creation platform for modern creators! It’s designed for anyone who wants to start creating in 3D but isn’t sure where to start, or those frustrated with complex tools.You don’t need to start from scratch! Get a head start with a complete model and easily remix it into whatever inspires you!

Adobe Substance 3D Modeler  – PC VR (subscription required)

Feature Focus: Modeling

From the Developer: Adobe Substance 3D Modeler is an innovative sculpting and modeling app that aims at redefining how we create in 3D by combining VR and desktop experiences with a more natural approach to 3D modeling. Substance 3D Modeler frees you from technical constraints. With a Sparse Distance Field (SDF) engine at its core, Modeler allows you to model and sculpt without worrying about polycount, topology or subdivision levels. Sculpt away and add matter to your scene without ever the need to retopologize. Start your creation from scratch or import an existing model and convert it to clay to start sculpting.

Vermillion – Quest, PC VR ($20)

Feature Focus: Painting

From the Developer: It’s time to discover your inner artist! With Vermillion, you get a fully equipped oil painting studio in your home, without any of the mess. Ready for the unrivaled sense of accomplishment from creating your first painting? Learn with your favorite YouTube artists using the built-in web browser, trace reference images directly on the canvas, or even better—learn to paint from (new) friends in multiplayer!

Painting VR – Quest, PC VR ($20)

Feature Focus: Painting

https://youtu.be/h3TrGxojF_w?si=yhsDWfTYP5Oylg3y

From the Developer: It’s time to discover your inner artist! With Vermillion, you get a fully equipped oil painting studio in your home, without any of the mess. Ready for the unrivaled sense of accomplishment from creating your first painting? Learn with your favorite YouTube artists using the built-in web browser, trace reference images directly on the canvas, or even better—learn to paint from (new) friends in multiplayer!

Interested in seeing what talented artists can do with VR? Check out Anna Dream Brush and Rosie Summers.

Not finding the kind of creative VR tool you’re looking for? Let us know in the comments below.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Lhorkan

    I’m creating an oil painting VR app in my spare time, I guess this is as good a place as any to drop a sneak peek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgJ2pt4JLGA&feature=youtu.be

    • Xron

      Seems interesting for those who’re interested in painting.

  • Xron

    Great, thx didn’t know about some of them.

  • Hus Be

    Check out “Kodon”, it’s still in Early access on steam, but i think it belongs on your list as its a VR sculpting and modelling tool. It has some bugs for now, but great potential! https://store.steampowered.com/app/479010/Kodon/

    • Charles U. Farley

      Came here for this. Kodon is the best 3D sculpting tool for VR in my opinion. It’s the closest thing to having Zbrush, but on your face.

  • GeorgT

    Kodon3D is making ZBrush in VR, and have got support for desktop and tablet as well, probably one of the most “professional looking” 3D apps out there tbh https://www.facebook.com/Kodon3D/

  • Micha Colory Krebs

    Ohh! I am missing ColoryVR in that list. ColoryVR allows artists to import their own 4k textures and there are lots of features (like Soundpainting!) you will not find anywhere else… https://store.steampowered.com/app/924770/Colory_VR/ …to get an idea what you can do with ColoryVR visit me on YouTube:
    https://www.youtube.com/user/yroloc1a/videos

  • Zach

    Here’s another VR creative tool I’ve been working on: VARTISTE (https://vartiste.xyz/)

    It can paint PBR textures directly onto a 3D model. Import / Export GLTF. Handle 2D (and kind-of 3D) animations. Pencil-like sketching. Custom brushes, materials, all sorts of tools and effects. Might be worth checking out if the tools in the article aren’t doing quite what you want for 2D drawing or 3D surface painting.

  • Lux

    More motion capture than pure animation, but I’m going to shamelessly plug our app Flipside Studio as another option.

    Here’s an example live animated show produced almost entirely in Flipside Studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyIj7Fp6Llw

  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    Gravity Sketch is going free starting tomorrow (25.01) :
    https://twitter.com/GravitySketch/status/1341109766068813839

    Please update your page :)

  • Stumble

    ShapeLab is another great app for VR sculpting. It’s still early access, but there are a lot of great features and it’s mesh based, instead of voxels. https://store.steampowered.com/app/571890/ShapeLab/

  • Lhorkan

    Check out Vermillion if you’re looking for an oil painting sim!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3mXU81GezQ

  • NL_VR

  • Can you please update this to make it clear that Tilt Brush is now open source and nobody needs to spend $20 on it? This has been true for months and I’m surprised the recent update to the article missed it out: https://www.openbrush.org/

  • Thanks, Ben, for sharing this list with us! I guess, Six tools are free on your list.

  • curious to try any arte program

  • Ad

    Vermilion trailer instead of painting trailer

    • Ben Lang

      Thanks, fixed!

      • Ad

        Did the painting video not embed right?

  • Anthony Covert

    The videos don’t match up to the sections properly.

    • Ben Lang

      Which are you seeing that’s not correct?

  • Vanz

    ShapelabVR is my favorite Modeling tool.

  • clipping930

    Now it is an era of e-commerce and online business where product photo plays the principal role on running them. Everyone know the better impression gives the positive result on creating online business. With a view to making the online business profitable, you should create the high-quality product post. If the products are choice, they add them to their business cart.

  • Great article. Check out. Thanks for published your experience with us.

  • Thank you, Ben, for sharing such useful information with us. God bless you.