APP REVIEW: Water Color Pencil for Android

Water Color Pencil for Android

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.

APP REVIEW: Zen Brush for Android tablets

Zen Brush

A great attempt at replicating the feel of drawing with a calligraphic brush and ink, you'll feel like a zen master in seconds. The only caveat is a lack of features and performance. Read on for more details...

The Future of the Toshiba Excite Write tablet

Is the Excite Write a one-off or does Toshiba have plans to make this product their top-end tablet solution? Does Toshiba plan to appeal to the artistic + design market?

Extended use review: the Toshiba Excite Write

It's been three weeks since I received my Toshiba Excite Write and I've used it at least two hours a day since. Here's a list of my experiences with it during that time:

7 Performance Tips for Tuning your Toshiba Excite Write to ensure optimal drawing performance

When I was a kid, the performance tip was simple: grab a clothespin and latch a (probably now extremely rare and expensive) baseball card to the rear dropout of your bike and let 'er go. For the most part, the tips and techniques contained herein will sort of be like that: somewhat psychological. Just like with your PC or laptop, we never really know what the culprit can be that impacts our system's performance. Likely some kind of I/O device has been added that has a conflict with another, perhaps a driver has been corrupted, maybe some application you installed keeps calling home for no discernible reason at all. Regardless, if you stick to these basics, you should at least stay out of trouble and be able to ensure that if you're drawing, for the most part, it will be the way nature intended.

The Toshiba Excite Write television commercial

Wow, Toshiba has a TV ad for the Excite Write... I wonder if it's any good?

OK, we all know what I think of Toshiba's marketing prowess, and this commercial apparently has some people a little pissed...

APP REVIEW: Infinite Designer (vector-based drawing program)

Infinite Designer

If you crave vector-based illustration (Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, etc.) then look no further. Infinite Designer is a decent stop-gap graphic design application.

Getting optimal performance out of your Wacom pressure-sensitive pen

Although it's called the "TruPen", the pen that comes with your Toshiba Excite Write uses technology licensed from Wacom (the most respected name in pressure sensitive drawing tablets and screens) and is essentially a "Wacom Bamboo Feel" stylus -- any advice you find regarding the optimal use of a Wacom pen will also apply to the TruPen. So here's some of that advice:

UPDATE: IT'S HERE Android 4.3 on the Toshiba Excite Write

Well, it finally showed up in my Software Update, so it looks like it's a fait accomplie: Android 4.3 "W digitizer" is here and installable on your Toshiba Excite Write (and presumably Pro model as well). The actual version number is 4.3.101121114.03, at least on my unit. I'm installing it now and I'll update if there any changes/improvements/issues. I'll have more information in the actual blog article.

Toshiba's added a new section to the Excite Write product page, along with some videos!

Toshiba Excite Write official page

They still didn't fix the errors and 404s on the page, but the page now features a row of icons at the bottom with some videos... here they are:

APP REVIEW: Infinite Painter

Infinite Painter

 An almost-all-there effort that's worth the free version download to see if you can live with its performance issues.

APP REVIEW: Sketch O Paint

Sketch O Paint

Don't be mislead by those nice, fat old-world brushes in the icon and the sample pictures of a brooding batman and a perfectly undercooked Stimpy, this software is way more "paint" than "sketch".

The maturation of the tablet market... are we there yet?

For over a decade now, Microsoft (and others) had been trying desperately to make the tablet a commercially successful platform. The combination of not-quite-there technology coupled with the fact that Windows just wasn't designed for touchscreens at that time meant that every attempt failed to make any significant traction with consumers. As we all know, at precisely the point where some lines on a graph intersected with some others, apple decided to jump into the market with the right product and the rest is history. Considering that the first iPad is coming up on its 4th anniversary this April, the tablet market is here, but has it reached maturity and is it here to stay?

APP REVIEW: ArtFlow Studio on the Toshiba Excite Write

ArtFlow Studio

This is one of those hidden gems, a true Sketchbook Pro competitor. This drawing app boasts over 70 different brush types, full pressure support, and some tools and features that Autodesk left out of the Android version of Sketchbook Pro (such as a smudge tool).

UPDATED! APP REVIEW: Autodesk Sketchbook Ink on the Toshiba Excite Write Tablet

Autodesk Sketchbook Ink

 This is a resolution-independent drawing tool useful more for final or print-quality artwork (it can output very high resolution images). When you zoom in, there is no rasterization as each stroke is re-rendered to the scale at which it is displayed. Although you cannot infinitely scale down to make micrometer-sized strokes (there is a minimum size) you will be able to create very fine details, including pointillism and crosshatching. Sketch your drawing frames in SketchBook and import into Ink to create final artwork.

UPDATE (Jan 18, 2014): unfortunately, I had to drop the score down to two stars; although the tool is an excellent one, after much drawing with it, I discovered some performance issues (which weren't showstoppers) but there were a couple of crashes and I lost about 20 minute's worth of drawing work. If it happens to me again, I will lower my score further and warn against purchasing this software (unfortunately, as I love it otherwise!

You will find some slight performance hiccups now and then when the screen redraws itself, but I experienced this with other devices as well so I wouldn't see this as a Toshiba-only issue. The computations are pretty extensive to perform so zooming into a heavily cross-hatched illustration will understandably (but only occasionally) need to reset itself if there is a cache conflict. No big deal and liveable.

Drawing is a fluid process, although careful selection of brush min and max and shape will yield best results if you are using pressure to vary line thickness.

Output to higher resolutions can take some time to perform -- don't worry, it hasn't crashed, it's number-crunching your art.

If there were more functions and tools available, as well as more precise tools (such as bezier curves) I would rate it higher. We'll see if subsequent versions get feature additions.

APP REVIEW: Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on the Toshiba Excite Write

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on the Toshiba Excite Write - full review

I remember when this used to be an Alias product that was developed mainly for industrial designers and car designers. It's had a completely different development history than a product like Photoshop, and has always focused on the drawing/painting experience.

SketchBook Pro features drawing tools that concentrate on trying to emulate the feel of pencil, pen, marker and airbrush on paper, and does one of the best jobs in the industry at providing precision and accurate sampling input from a pen or stylus. The product includes basic masking tools as well as some geometric drawing tools, layers, and more.

The interface is very straightforward and is essentially identical to the iPad version and slightly cut from the desktop version.

The feel of Sketchbook Pro is much like you'd find on the iPad however be aware that if you have too many applications running in the background that are resource-intensive or there are any updates or downloads happening in the background, you will experience the occasional lag or incomplete line!

However, once your downloads/installs/notification-heavy apps have stopped interrogating the OS, you'll find moments of lucid drawing that, aside from the slightly slippery aspect of drawing on glass, will feel amazingly fluid and realistic.

One major feature I'd like to see added is the ability to save custom brushes and although I haven't tried it with a keyboard yet, I hope to be able to control (e.g., change brushes, brush sizes, tools, etc.) with keyboard commands. I'll report back when I get my keyboard.

For the sketcher in you, this is an excellent and responsive tool and a must-have.