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19 May 2011
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Of course, we're not talking about the actual Da Vinci here. We're talking more about a figurative, little Da Vinci that lives inside you. The kind that makes you want to bust out a pencil and start sharing your masterpieces with the world. While Sketch Club doesn't make you an artist, it definitely makes it easier to become one you've always dreamed of being. Read on for the run down.
Excited yet? Or just thinking this is another one of those run-of-the-mill drawing programs? Well, in a way, it kind of is. It has all the same features as most of them, like different brushes, an eraser, the ability to publish them to the apps website. But it's the way it does it that makes it different. In the different drawing apps I've tried, there always seems to be something aggravating enough to stop me using it. This ranges from sticky brushes to an aggravating method for zooming, to awkwardly placed menus.
Sketch Club seems to remove almost all of my hangups about drawing programs, by creating an easy to use interface that is as smooth as it is simple (There's that word again). It does this by sticking with what we already know. Let me explain: How do we zoom on a webpage? Two fingers, right? Same in Sketch Club. There isn't a zoom button, and the technique needed to rotate the canvas is the same technique for zooming. Put two fingers on the screen and pull them apart, and you zoom in. Pinch, and you zoom out. Rotation is just as easy, just put two fingers on and swivel them.
By incorporating these features with multitouch, they've removed the need for buttons, and in doing that they've made the entire app easier to use. The removal of excess buttons gives also leaves more space for drawing, which is especially important given the iPhone's relatively small screen size. If you're on an iPad, you won't have the space problem, but us iPhone users may struggle. Luckily, since zooming is so easy, it's not an issue to get up close and personal with your drawing to get those little details in.
They give you the option to draw in different colours, as you'd expect, although I myself prefer to stick with simply black and white. Choosing a new colour is easy, using the generic wheel we all know and love. There's also an eyedropper tool, so if you need another colour that's already somewhere on your canvas, but forgot exactly where it was, you can find it again lickity split.
It's a fish. Don't pretend you couldn't tell.
When it comes to brushes, you've got your usual choices of size and opacity, as well as the option to choose between different types of brush. I won't bother going into individual explanations of each type, since you need to be able to do at least a little exploring by yourself, but I will say that they are very good at giving a "Sketchy" look. It does this by kind of auto-shading the pictures, as you can see in my beautiful example picture. This auto-shading could get on the nerves of some people, but if it does, just choose the "Pen" brush, as that doesn't do the shading for you.
There are a few issues with it though. Occasionally the menu has become unresponsive for me, or it's crashed while saving a picture. I'm not sure exactly why it does this, and it hasn't meant I've lost the image, as it has always saved jsut before the crash, but it is annoying, to say the least. It seems to me a lot of apps are plagued by this problem though, and I imagine they'll be working to fix it soon.
Overall: It's a great little drawing app, perfect for anyone, whether your a bus-stop scribbler, or a full blown Picasso. It's a perfect time killer, and much more constructive than something mindless, like Angry Birds. And look, it's turned me into a brilliant artist already. Don't you agree?
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