Exsto Press Kit
Share the story of Exsto and encourage more people to embark on a journey of creative self-discovery.
App Name
Exsto
Developer
Developer location
Alexandra, New Zealand
Launch dates
Version 1.0: 21 December 2022
Version 2.0: 16 May 2023
Version 3.0: 18 September 2023
Version 4.0: 5 January 2025
Version 5.0: 18 November 2025
Version 5.1: 26 June 2026
Version 5.2: 1 August 2026
Key contact
App Store URL
https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6444933770
Platform Requirements
iPadOS 26.3 and higher
iOS 26.3 and higher
macOS 26.3 and higher
Pricing (in USD)
Free to download and draw in the Playground. Creating, editing, and saving documents, and exporting artwork, require Exsto Unlimited.
Exsto Unlimited: $44.99 one-time purchase or subscription at $1.99/week or $24.99/year.
Check the local App Store for pricing in other currencies.
App Description
Exsto is an experimental drawing and concept-sketching tool built for artists. Explore characters, creatures, environments, compositions, and unexpected forms with expressive strokes, mirror drawing, symmetry, and three-point perspective.
Exsto is designed for the beginning of the creative process: the fast, loose stage where you test shapes, develop variations, and follow unexpected directions. Natural variation in every movement becomes part of the result, helping you find forms you might never have planned.
Draw in perspective
Position three vanishing points, select a ground or wall plane, and draw directly onto it. Exsto maps your strokes and their expressive variation into the selected plane, while an adaptive grid helps you understand the space as you pan and zoom.
Explore with mirror and symmetry
Mirror your strokes in real time around an adjustable axis. Use symmetry to develop balanced characters, creatures, props, vehicles, architecture, and unexpected abstract forms.
Explore shape and form
Exsto’s organic stroke behaviour responds to subtle variations in your movement. Work loosely, push shapes in different directions, and develop the strongest results further.
Made for Apple Pencil
On iPad, Exsto responds to Apple Pencil pressure, tilt, and movement. Subtle variations in your input influence each stroke, giving you direct control without removing the unexpected qualities that make exploration productive.
Work across iPad, iPhone, and Mac
Every Exsto canvas is an editable document. Save your work in iCloud Drive or your preferred Files-compatible cloud service, begin a concept with Apple Pencil on iPad, continue working on Mac, and keep ideas close on iPhone. You can also share the original Exsto document without flattening your artwork.
Built natively for Apple platforms using Metal and SwiftUI, Exsto delivers fluid, responsive drawing across your devices.
Continue creating from the Home Screen
The interactive Creation of the Day widget lets you add strokes directly from your Home Screen. Build an image gradually throughout the day and return to Exsto when an idea begins to take shape.
Move ideas into your workflow
Export your work as PNG, JPEG, TIFF, or SVG. Continue developing your concepts in another art tool, share exported artwork with collaborators, include it in a presentation, or use it as the foundation for a finished piece.
About the developers
Exsto was created by a small team of two software developers, Natalia Panferova and Matthaus Woolard. Natalia and Matthaus both like sketching and painting to relax but often feel stuck when trying to plan their artworks in advance. They designed Exsto to help aspiring artists like themselves overcome that quandary, and to help them immediately enjoy the process.
In early 2023, Natalia was accepted into the Apple Entrepreneur Camp, a one-on-one technology lab for underrepresented founders and developers with app-driven businesses. Here, Natalia and Matthaus received a lot of great advice from Apple designers and engineers. New versions of Exsto incorporate much of their learnings, with a greater focus on spontaneous creativity with ready-to-use color sets, and simplified tools and settings. Technologically wise, the updated application contains Exsto’s first Metal-powered implementation, bringing significant benefits of hardware-accelerated graphics that tap the full potential of Apple silicon. This is now available on the App Store.
Natalia and Matthaus are dedicated to continue evolving Exsto and to bring joy and creative inspiration in the lives of more people.
Exsto 5.2
Create environments, architecture, vehicles, and concept sketches with the new three-point Perspective drawing mode.
- Draw on Ground, Left Wall, or Right Wall perspective planes while preserving the natural character of your strokes.
- Position three vanishing points with live guides, then work over an adaptive perspective grid as you pan and zoom.
- Switch planes quickly using the Mac and iPad toolbars, keyboard shortcuts, or the new Apple Pencil tap action.
- Navigate the canvas using keyboard commands for fitting artwork, zooming, panning, rotating, and straightening the view.
- Prevent accidental trackpad camera movement on Mac once a drawing stroke is established.
- Preserve perspective settings in your documents across Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
Exsto 5.1
- Rotate the canvas freely while drawing and navigating your artwork.
- Rotate and reposition symmetry guides to explore forms from different angles.
- Added Mac controls for rotating and straightening the canvas view.
Exsto 5.0
- A refreshed interface designed for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26.
- Adopted Liquid Glass across Exsto’s controls, toolbars, and navigation.
Exsto 4.0
- macOS support
- Canvas sharing across devices
Exsto 3.0
- `Creation of the Day` interactive widget that lets you make abstract art right on your Home Screen
- Tips throughout the app to help you make the most of Exsto
Exsto 2.1
- iPhone support
- Canvas export and import for moving and editing artworks between devices
- Undo and redo button and a toggle in settings to hide it for focused creativity
- New pricing model: now you can try Exsto for free before you commit
Exsto 2.0
- Automatically picked color sets for new canvases to let you jump straight into creating
- Better performance when panning and zooming large canvases powered by Metal not to limit your creative flow
- Subtle stroke changes responding to Apple Pencil tilt and pressure to give you more control
- Adjusted rendering in response to low power mode and critical thermal state not to overwhelm your device
- Improved support for reduced motion accessibility setting to respect your device settings
