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2011.03.31 Toes in Sandal

iPod Touch

Paintbook App

Freehand from life/observation

<= 15 minutes

 

This rant is the same on all of tonight's drawings so skip it if you've already seen it... or if you don't care what app I used or why :)

 

I've been settling on Paintbook for drawing on the train for the following reasons:

 

1. It is really really quick to get a clean surface to draw on. Click once to save what you've got, click again to get a new piece of paper, click a third time to choose paper color. It's also three clicks in Brushes but it takes longer since it loads the gallery in between. I surely don't understand all the apps that make you go to a gallery view to get a clean piece of paper.

 

2. This next point also applies to other vector programs such as Quill and Inkpad, By drawing with filled shapes, I eliminate the need to ever change line size and can simply draw. Basically I use a very thin line and a fill of the same color, with a fair amount of transparency. To draw a 'line' I draw both sides of the line, close together for a thin line, further apart for a thick line. While this may seem like double the strokes to draw, it gives me far more control without ever having to interrupt my drawing to go to a menu. It also allows me to vary the shape of my lines, how they taper etc. And of course a shape is just a very thick, undulating line ;)

 

3. This also applies to all three Vector programs I use, and is actually easier to deal with in Quill: I can focus on drawing without going to color wheels, and then change the color of each part after the fact. Of course for these very quick drawings I often leave them in a fairly monotone range, but on longer drawings I'll go back and develop the color later.

 

OK, while I'm listening to the sound of my own typing, what don't I like about Paintbook?

 

1. I hate the color wheel palette thingy and tend to treat it as just having the fixed preselected colors. Could we have an option for *any* standard color wheel?

2. When I'm in object edit mode and have an object selected it would be far easier than having all those tiny icons whose meanings I need to memorize (and whose definitions are not available offline) to simply have two-finger mode act on the object rather than the whole drawing. Then I could intuitively move, resize, rotate, etc, just by using my two fingers - as one might expect.

3. It's great that it's so easy get a new piece of paper, but I wish it didn't reset all my setting every time. I would like to keep my drawing mode, color, etc from drawing to drawing in the same session (or even across sessions).

 

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Uploaded on April 1, 2011