[schunnin]

Colors! is a simplistic digital application for Nintendo DS based on modern painting-techniques developed for drawing tablets in programs like Photoshop. By taking advantage of the pressure sensitivity of the DS touch-screen it becomes a perfect portable digital sketch-book.

COLORS!
Sparths Gallery

[Hammer6]

Very cool. I mean very cool! Great find. I looked at the gallery on the Colors site and there is some very nice/impressive work there. Guess I'll have to go find out how to enable "home brew" programs on the DS, figure out how to pull them off to a computer, etc. And I happen to live with a teenage boy who's interest in the DS has been overcome by the XBox, PS3, etc. Hmmm, what could I do with a DS...

[Russ]

What a coincidence! I downloaded it two weeks ago soon after I discovered the wonderful world of DS homebrew.

The program is great. Unfortunately the touchscreen in my DS Light is not so sensitive to pressure in the middle area after a year of studying kanj (writing characters in the same spot over and over) so the fat lines dwindle to thin lines in the middle, and the dark lines suddenly go light. Of course, I can turn off the pressure sensitive feature and this no longer becomes an issue (I just lament the loss of such a great feature since I love line variation!)

A bigger issue is my strokes suddenly send out lightning fast branches across the screen when I cross this mysterious zone. It seems to happen every other stroke. I can undo the stroke but I like to sketch in long quick meandering lines, which means I might have to undo half the sketch to kill that deviant line. I would have to get a new touchscreen and replace it myself (I might as well attempt brain surgery on myself) or buy a new DS to take advantage of this program -- or sketch in shorter strokes.

(added later: there is really not an undo function but you can play back the entire drawing process like a movie and stop just before the mistake was made and proceed from there.)

However, I was amazed at how was able to get sketches resembling both transparent watercolor and opaque oils, depending on the settings.

Here's a scribble I made in a few seconds using the program with transparent color strokes over black lines. You can see evidence of the "branches" which always seem to shoot out diagonally to the lower left from the center area:



It was fun.

BTW for those who are completely in the dark about this stuff (as I was about 2 weeks ago) you need to buy a special card such as the R4 which has a slot for a removable micro SD card which will allow you to download programs you find on the internet. Then learn how to use this stuff by lurking on the various forums about DS Homebrew which is what they call the home made applications for the DS.

[Russ]

I just installed the Colors again after having deleted it a week ago. Funny, but the darting line problem seems to have gone away (I think because I'm pressing harder) and I'm having a lot of fun with doodling. I will probably use it on the train since nobody would suspect I'm sketching them -- you see these DS's everywhere. BTW that gallery you had linked to is very inspiring! I had no idea how far a gifted person could take this program.

Here is a more involved doodle using the program. This time I kept the colors opaque since opaque media is easier than transparent. This was done from imagination, going from dark to light and from background to foreground, making it up as I went along. It has been a long time since I "painted" with opaque colors, and this is very different from my normal style.



Okay, now I'm sold. This is one cool program. I can't believe it is freeware!

[Chris]

This is absolutely amazing. I'm speechless beyond that.

[Sean]

I just ordered an R4 card with a 1gb SD card. I've downloaded colors and will be chomping at the bit until it arrives. Thanks for the heads up on this program. Why do you guys always make me spend money?!!

[Russ]

One cool (and really useless) feature is that you can play back the entire drawing process from the first stroke like a movie. In this case, it looks like a sky appeared, then clouds, then a tree grew from the ground and leaves appear.

[Sean]

For anyone who wants to try this program relatively cheaply there is a cartridge at Wal-mart called Games N Music for $19.95 and comes with everything you need. (software, 128 mb micro SD card, and Micro SD to USB adapter) All you have to do then is download the Games N music version of Colors frome here: http://colors.brombra.net/downloads.php

Transfer it to your card, put the card in your DS and you are up and running. This program is really really cool!! Thanks again.

Here is my 1st attempt with this app, not as nice as Russ' tree but give me time



Sean

[Chris]

Thanks Sean. I plugged the baby in the carseat and popped over to wal-mart and sure enough, they had the games n music. I just did a quick test to make sure it worked.

So now I have a nice ds sketchbook. I'll post any sketches after the weekend.

[Russ]

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the link to the Games 'n Music version of Colors. I have that card, too. The one problem with it is that the catch that holds the micro SD card in place can stop working suddenly, and you need to keep the card from popping out by using a piece of tape. It happened to me. It's a small bother, though, and the Games 'N Music card is a great way to get started immediately (you can even watch movies on your DS -- amazing).

Great fish sketch! I need to get used to digital painting, and practically go back to the beginning and get a feel for it (trees are easy, everything else is difficult). I never took it seriously until now even though I've used Photoshop for other things these past 11 years. I hate to be tied to my computer indoors for long spans of time if I can help it. But now everything has changed; I have been looking forward to precisely such an invention that would allow a plein air Wacom-tablet-and-Photoshop type drawing experience. I had envisioned a slightly larger format, but this will do. The resulting work when viewed on a computer is actually twice the size of the DS screen.

Update: I downloaded and installed Colors in the Games folder on my Games 'N Music card, and discovered I couldn't save or load images (got an error message). So I deleted the Colors program (and the folder it created) and installed a fresh copy in the root directory outside the VIDEO, AUDIO and GAMES folders. Then the program saved and loaded images just fine. Well, it worked fine the second time. The first attempt had an error message but when I turned off the DS and turned it back on, the program fixed itself somehow. This experience combines my love of art with my disdain for computers -- even tiny ones.

Anyway, I have gotten Colors working on the Games 'N Music card, and it works fine.

[Sean]

No problem guys, glad I could help out. I have a tablet PC with Sketchbook Pro software and it is uncanny how good this little program compares to the Big boys. I think the only thing else I would want in the software would be "Undo" and the ablity to have layers. This isn't possibe because of the memory limitations of the DS but these are small gripes. I do Information Technology for a living and am just a big geek at heart so I'm in total admiration of jens andersson and his program.

Just an FYI, there maybe another DS paint application in the works.

http://popsci.typepad.com/popsci/2007/03/the_nintendo_ds.html

It looks interesting. Keep the programs coming!

[Russ]

The absence of an undo feature is a strong argument for working with opaque colors rather than transparent (tough decision for us watercolor guys). You can at least use the eyedropper and get the exact color to patch over any mistakes. Come to think of it, patching over a mistake with fresh paint is what I had to do back when I painted in oils -- I could never find an undo function for those either.

[Hammer6]

Got my card the other day and have been playing. This really is a very capable little program - and you can't beat the form factor with the DS. I pulled some images off of the card last night and was pleased with the quality when printed and viability for use in other digital graphics tools.

[Hammer6]

After appropriating his Nintendo DS Lite for the last several days to play with Colors, my son is amused that I went out and got a used DS. The more I play with colors, the more impressed I am. I did some hard copy prints and the quality such that you could print cards, incorporate the sketch into another image in something like Photoshop Elements, etc. I find Colors much more like oils or guache rather than watercolor because the transparency just isn't there (likely driven by the size/resolution as much as anything). I'm sold though, this is much more than a "toy", there's some real potential here.

[Russ]

I know how you feel. I never thought I would ever join the DS crowd (which includes both my kids) and actually buy one for myself. But I've been using it for kanji study for a year (exactly one year as of today as a matter of fact) and now I'm using it for sketching. Someday I may even put a game on it.

I've been able to avoid those shooting lines by keeping a bit of pressure on the stylus. When I forget and use a light touch, the shooting lines return. I didn't have a single shooting line on the tree sketch above, but they were coming every few strokes before I discovered the pressure trick.