Another solid effort from almost out of nowhere, this tool reminds me of the old Painter software (now Corel Painter X3, I guess) that emulated real world drawing and painting tools. Water Color Pencil focuses specifically on water-based media and does a credible job of it, but its main strength lies in its performance and input capture, which is top-notch.
Water Color Pencil installs as a free evaluation version with a pared-down feature set and ads. For the US$2.00 it costs to buy it, it's almost a no-brainer just to have upgrade to the full version if only to fool around with it now and then.
The attempt at emulation can be impressive, for example, if you use the "wet brush" on the canvas first, wherever you applied the "water" remains damp and if you draw on it with other media, the effect changes. Using the "wet brush" on lines or shading you've already drawn "moistens" the artwork (the amount is adjustable) and causes some nice emulated water effects. Unfortunately, you have to apply multiple times to get the same effect as just leaving the brush there for a long time to saturate the page as you would in real life, but it's still as effective a result in the end.
Although there is only one fixed canvas size, it's pretty generous and approximates a good-sized drawing pad. It also comes with several emulated hot and cold-pressed paper types, and the texture applies to your drawings in a very realistic manner. The software's ability to sample your strokes on these papers is one this software's most impressive features.When you shade with a colored pencil, you might as well be using a real pencil, with the accuracy and the speed with which it applies to the paper. Large, fast, strokes are also captured in real-time, with no lag, and perfect arcs (unless you're using a large, complex brush, in which case, you will note the curve trying to catch up - but you will not lose your stroke's fidelity). Whoever developed this aspect of the software knew what they were doing when it came to ensuring that the experience of drawing was not compromised.
The feel of each tool is unique to the product, which makes output a little more "real-world", so for example, the air brush - like a real airbrush - can quickly and easily become opaque on the canvas and a deft, light touch is necessary.
The interface takes some getting used to, as the product is really meant to be toggled between two modes: interface visible, and interface hidden. There is a control in the top right hand corner that is always visible (along with undo and redo) that basically toggles the UI. When on, the interface takes over almost 2/3 of the screen and uses a combination of realistic icons and large, simple controls. To fully exploit this product, you have to get comfortable with toggling between UI on and UI off mode quickly.
This UI has a couple of failings: it has been obviously rendered for a completely different baseline product (likely a lower-resolution tablet) and therefore ends up looking both a little pixelated as well as a little stretched. It's no show-stopper, to be sure, but it would be great if some of the text and icons were a bit less blurry. I'll concede that using a lower-resolution UI probably saves on memory, redraw, redevelopment costs, ensures a unique look, and makes for super-easy to use oversized input surfaces.
Selecting a color is actually a 2-step affair: after choosing a color in the Hue/Saturation wheel, you have to then determine a value by tapping on one of the values in the toolbox row at the bottom of the screen. The decision to use a row of brushes/pencils/pens etc. in this function was a great idea because it instantly transports you back to that rush of excitement you got as a kid when presented with one of those extra-huge prismacolor sets, where there were literally hundreds of intermediate shades. It's a good look and one that brings back a lot of the joy and fun of choosing a color/tool, although I'd love to see them either name each color somehow (e.g., "Red-011-001" or RGB color values and perhaps name each round-number color with a common name, such that RGB 255,0,0 becomes "Red") to make re-selection more precise.
It's a fun tool with enough performance and real-world feel to be more than worth the price of admission. In future versions, I'd love to see the addition of oil paints, custom brush shapes, custom canvas sizes, layers, and masks. With those features added, it would make 5 stars.
 |
| The little house on the hill, where the compulsive person who drew every single blade of grass lives. |
 |
| Interestingly, this is a screenshot of the demo version, I'll probably have to create my own screenshot illustrating all of the tools you get when you purchase the full version. |
 |
| You'll probably spend the first half hour or so with this software doing exactly this sort of thing with it... |
 |
| Cute chicks sell software. |
 |
| Nice example of how from a distance you don't see the different colors that come together to make a richer picture |
 |
| Everyone knows that Valentine's Day is coming up, right? |
No comments:
Post a Comment