Trying Colors!

So I’ve tried Colors! an iPhone and NDS drawing app I’ve mentioned a few posts ago. Still missing a few things that I would love to have as features like layers. But from what I’ve seen and tried, this one is my favorite so far. This app has been around for a while as a Nintendo DS application. So it already has a healthy community.

If you check out their site you can see many cool examples.

yet another girl by mr.blonde

Toucan I Am by Boreal Boy

Jinse 2 by kaze-hime

One feature I feel in love with is the gallery. You can browse through other artists work and replay every single stroke. I found it to be a great learning tool. Its very entertaining to see other people drawing. And the best part is that you can download the examples and keep it and re-play it whenever you want.

Same goes with your saved work, you can re-play your work and stop it at any moment and save it as a different file, so you can work on different versions if you want. Because it doesn’t support layers the process is more like oil painting. Took me a while to get used to, but if your already a painter then you’ll pick it up naturally.

Features I like

• tilt control for brush size, or paint opacity - quickly change brush size/opacity just by tilting
• export to bigger image size
• replay every stroke
• download uploaded examples from gallery - a great learning tool
• brush offset -  so you can see what your drawing when using your finger
• flip x,y to flip the canvas to a more comfortable orientation - good way to check your proportions 

Few things that could make this app better…

• layers, even just one more layer please!!!
• more smooth zooming
• more zoom levels
• faster eye dropper color picker

But most of this I think I can get used to. I’m trying to practice and I’ll put up some work when I get better at drawing on my iPhone. I’m very happy that I have all the painting tools I need right in my pocket all the time. All I need now is some motivation and time

Drawing on the iPhone

I want to draw on my iPhone. I’m not expecting to paint any master pieces on the little screen. I’d say it would mostly be for idea sketches, story boards, concepts, color studies and what not. I see it as my digital Moleskine with almost unlimited number of pages. It’s one less thing to carry around. Guarantee’s that I will have it with me at all times. I don’t have to kill any more trees. And I feel much more comfortable knowing that I can make as many mistakes as I want - duplicate, save in different stages, and undos, try that on a Moleskine!

Here is my ideal set of features for drawing on the iPhone.

1. aliased strokes, with good brush options - thickness, shape
2. HSB color picker with quick and easy interface
3. easy zoom
4. pressure - at least some way of controlling the brush stroke, maybe by speed of stroke?
5. need a stylus - fat finger gets in the way
6. layers - need at least 2 layers to keep the sketch and paint under it
7. fast, easy interface - picking colors, changing brush size, and other most often used options