Gizmodo: drawing

Etch-A-Sketch Freestyle Seems Like Cheating

Jack Loftus — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:30:00 EST

The Etch-A-Sketch Freestyle aims to eliminate those wobbly, pixel-edged circles that occur on the original. It's cheating.

Call me a dinosaur all you want, I prefer the original over this $15 "modern" update, faults and all. This thing makes everything so easy and carefree. How boring.

On a related note, 3D Etch-A-Sketches? You're cool. [Etch A Sketch Freestyle via OhGizmo]

ScribbleBot Makes You Feel Like You Know How To Draw

Sean Fallon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:00:00 EST

So you can't draw. No problem—ScribbleBot can help. I mean, you still won't have any talent, but you can at least feel like you do for a short period of time.

As you will see in the video, the ScribbleBot is a wireless printing device that follows a pre-set drawing path downloaded from the internet. Essentially, it's like a fancy printer, but your hand can go along for the ride. Would something like this help you learn how to draw? With repetition I suppose anything is possible—although I don't see it emerging from the concept stage anytime soon. [Yanko]

"Apple Netbook" Student Project Is a Pencil-Drawn Beauty

Dan Nosowitz — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:35:00 EDT

This little project has been making the rounds as the "new Apple netbook," which, unfortunately, is way off. But the truth is pretty cool anyway: It's a beautiful pencil-drawn, wooden model.

Student Kyle Buckner made this 3/4 scale model out of wood, with real working hinges and everything, and hand-drew the Dock, icons, keyboard, trackpad, and even the little Philips screws on with a pencil. It also features a magnetically-attached "screen" that has a pull-tab underneath. When pulled, the tab shows a very cool film strip drawing with illustrations of the wonders of Mac. Check out the gallery below for more shots. [Kyle Buckner, thanks Kyle!]

The Circuit Board Pen Is a Forgivable Oxymoron

Mark Wilson — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:00:00 EST

It's true, just as it's tough to simultaneously enjoy outhouses and Japanese toilets, chances are that you won't dually appreciate both circuit boards and pens.

Still, we had to write (type, I should say) about the Circuit Board Pen. Not just some ballpoint coated in a cheap electronic veneer, the pen features a real circuit board painstakingly wrapped in an extremely thin layer of custom-lathed acrylic.

The result is a touchable circuit board pen that hopefully will not cut or poison you. And while its $80 price may seem a tad steep, that's really pretty reasonable when viewed from the admittedly skewed niche of collectible pens. [Pens As Art Thanks Robert!]

9 Year Old Writes iPhone Application

Sean Fallon — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:20:00 EST

So, is the age of 10 becoming the new benchmark for career success? We already have an 8-year old Microsoft Certified Professional and now we can add a 9-year old iPhone developer to the list.

The 9-year old I am speaking of is Lim Ding Wen from Singapore, and the app he developed is called Doodle Kids. Designed with his artistic younger sisters (aged 3 and 5) in mind, the app allows users to draw shapes in random colors and then clear their work with a shake of the phone. Since its launch two weeks ago, the freebie app has attracted over 4000 downloaders.

Apparently, Lim is fluent in six programming languages and started using the computer at the age of two. Since then, he has completed over 20 programming projects. Currently, he is in the process of developing a game called Invader Wars, which he hopes to launch on the App Store in the near future. His father, who also writes iPhone applications, claims that they check their statistics every night in a friendly father/son competition.

Man, this makes the "Clean Desk Award" I earned in 3rd grade seem like total crap. [Reuters via Digg]

16 Drawing Contraptions That Are More Artistic Than You

Sean Fallon — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:20:00 EDT

Drawing doesn't come easy to all of us. I worked as a professional artist on and off for years and God knows I have seen some horrible stuff. Like someone put a pencil between their butt-cheeks horrible. Like other tasks, we have turned to robotics in an effort to make the process a little easier. OObject has compiled 16 of these contraptions—everything from devices that draw intricate geometric patterns to a crazy boot contraption that pushes around dirt from a nuclear test site. It may not technically be drawing, but I am partial to the 1100 barrel paintball gun built by the Mythbusters that paints the Mona Lisa instantly. [OObject]

HTC Dream Engineering Drawings Reveal its Skinniness, Big Chin

Kit Eaton — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:49:00 EDT

Yesterday we had the FCC imagery to give us some of the HTC Dream's sizes, but today over at Androidguys.com they've got hold of engineering drawings that give us the full data: it's pretty skinny. Interestingly it's got a bent chin that looks a lot like the MotoRizr design, but the screen here slides to the side to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard. By using the FCC dimensions and doing a little measurement it looks like the phone's body is around 0.64-inches (16.35mm) deep which makes it fatter than the iPhone's 12.3mm, but thinner than the HTC Touch Pro's 18.1mm. The screen bezel complies with an approx 3.5-inch screen, but doesn't confirm the size of the screen itself. We'll have to wait for the next leak for that. [AndroidGuys via AndroidCommunity]

Drawing With Lasers, Art Class Was Never So Fun, Dangerous

Mark Wilson — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:38:00 EDT

It's an obvious idea that we'd never thought of before. Put your camera on a tripod and set it for a slow exposure. Now pull out a laser pointer and spell out your deepest inner feelings ("I <3 Cheese"). When you see the shot, the laser trail will appear solid and continuous, just like a neon sign. And at that juncture, you will finally have the motivation to come clean to your friends and family and just move to Wisconsin already. [Picasa via Hackedgadgets]

Apps We Like: NetSketch Collaborative Drawing Shares Your Chicken Scratch Over WiFi

John Mahoney — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:27:38 EDT

NetSketch is an $8 drawing app with Bonjour-like sharing abilities—if you're on the same WiFi network, it will automatically detect drawings and let you jump in to collaborate PictoChat style. Coming to classrooms and lecture halls this fall. [NetSketch]

3D Drawing Pad Makes Your Dirty Doodles Come Alive

Benny Goldman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:30:00 EDT

With the 3D drawing pad, your ugly scribbles will look like high-tech masterpieces. The paper on the pad has a special background that makes black pencil marks appear 3-dimensional when seen through those classic blue-and-red specs. A pack of 50 sheets (with glasses) is only $4, an awesome deal if it really works. I know what you're thinking, but I'm more mature than that. I would use my 3D pad to draw ripe, juicy watermelons and big, long rocket ships. [Product page via Coolest Gadgets]

How to Make Unimpressive GPS Art Just Like The Pros

Sean Fallon — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:20:00 EDT

Do you lack even the slightest artistic skill? Do you like cut corners and do things the easy way? If so, you may already have what it takes to become a seriously horrible GPS art student. Just take the enjoyable art test provided by Boing Boing Gadgets at home in your spare time. With our expert guidance you can create artwork on par with the pros. Just take a look at one of our successful students pictured above. [Boing Boing Gadgets]

Wacom Scraps Graphire for Bamboo

blongo3 — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:54:47 EDT

Wacom has replaced its old consumer model, Graphire, with a new two-model line called Bamboo and Bamboo Fun. First off, neither one of the new models can recognize that your pen is tilting, change functions depending on what application you're running, or use other non-Bamboo specific drawing pens.

But they both have added four programmable buttons as well as a large zooming/scrolling circle. The Bamboo is the more professional model of the two. It features a nice clean design, but lacks a larger tablet option, a mouse or even an eraser on the pen. But it's relatively cheap at $69.99. The Bamboo Fun, while looking significantly goofier, does include the pen, a larger tablet option and the mouse. But these extras bump up the price to $99.99 for the smaller tablet and $199.99 for the medium-sized one. Look for them later this month. [Crave]

3D Doodle Kit and Glasses (The Red and Blue Kind)

Brian Lam — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:37:19 EDT

I'm the only Chinese guy I know who can't draw, but maybe you can. And maybe you can put this 3D sketch kit, which includes a pair of glasses and locked red and blue pencils. The 2005 kit just went for sale at the NY/Online MOMA store. Then again for 7 bucks, maybe I should pick one up to turn my scraggly 2D stick figures into stereographic ones.–Brian Lam

3D Doodle Kit [MOMA]