Pencil drawing of a Dragon
I'll probably add pencil textures later and make a version with colors

here's a pepper I did(it's one of the mini lessons, he just gave me a picture and said "draw it", so there wasn't any guidlines to go by)

yeah, I know, I need to work on my crosshatching
oh and nice pic roopa!

I must have glossed over the release of Art Academy because I was to enamored by my new iPod Touch toy, at the time. Now that that effect has worn of considerably I was keen on checking out what was new in the land of DSiWare and I stumbled upon this great thread, and I've quite enjoyed taking a gander at all of your creations. It's pretty impressive to see what can be done with such piddly hardware.

While I've had Flipnote since release, I haven't done much with it. I suppose the whole 'use hundreds of frames for a few second animation' bit kind of intimidated me along with all the different tools. Art Academy seems to be much more up my alley, even if I don't call myself artistic in the least. Heck, I don't even remember the last time I've tried to draw anything besides doodling nonsense while talking on the phone.

Anyway, thanks for really getting me interested in this. I think I just may pick up Art Academy FS today. Hopefully it won't be too long before I join with my own submissions.

Roopa - Your dragon is brilliant! I'd like to see it if you decide to colour it in.

MoFaJo - Your cross hatching is fine. No one said you HAD to exactly use a cross-hatch. You got the shading right, so it's fine the way you did it.

That is awesome Roopa! Makes me want to draw something cool...

I finally got it today! I'll upload some stuff soon.
EDIT: TREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

I have art academy 1st semester but not the second. So I don't have instructions on mixing the paint. I get the basic idea of placing the pin on the surface as a colour picker but I can't mix the paint to achieve the exact colour I want.

I can get near with the mixing but when its getting close I can't see how to make the small adjustments that I need. Also I don't see exactly how black and white should be used in the colour mixing process.

I would welcome any advice, short of buying 2nd semester.

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Heres my best flipnote that ive made. Never tried art academy, i like to doodle during biology though so thats where my drawings "flourish"

@Scarecrow- Black and white can be used to darken and lighten colours without introducing different coloured paints. That explanation doesn't any good so here's an example.
Say you've got the perfect red colour on your pallette and you decide to use that for three layers, but in different shades. In that case you can copy the colour to another slot and add some black. This will keep the colour, only making it a darker shade. If you do the same with the white, it will keep the colour only making it lighter. Hopefully that helps.

@fatem, thanks for your reply about the use of black and white. I find getting the colour I want hard because the colour change when mixing say red and yellow is very large. Is there a way to just make small ,fine adjustments to the colour?

I just discovered using a brush with no paint and three drops of water is ideal for blending two colours together e.g. a shadow can have all the edges blended into the background colour like this. Is this mentioned in the second semester?

*Scarecrow * - That's what I was going to suggest .... try blending the paints with different amounts of water ... or even using the brushes with lots of water and no paint. That is covered in the 2nd trimester, and not the first.
I don't think the 2nd Semester really goes into great details about blending paints .... at least, I hoped it would have gone more into it than it did. But learning about blending water was a bit help to me.
The 2nd Semester does cover things like blending background colours on landscape paintings by starting with a sky blue colour, then adding a bit of green to it to add a row of distance mountains, then adding a drop of green and yellow to make a lighter colour for the foreground. So instead of starting fresh with all those layers of paint colours, it suggests using the existing mixes, and just toning them up or down a bit by adding a drop of another colour.
Another thing the 2nd Semester goes into is painting in the Impressionist style, where not every detail has to be painted. That has given me a lot of ideas, and I've been having a play trying to paint some myself.
And I think the thing not mentioned about the 2nd Semester is sketching a dog, which was pretty tricky. It was a bit like sketching the pear, but in a lot more detail, so I think it was helpful as well.
I'm glad I downloaded both versions of Art Academy, even if it was sort of like buying parts of the application twice. And to me it's nice having 2 places to have saved drawings. If I'm working on one but am not quite finished with it, but decide I want to start another picture, I just open up the other application. If they came out with a 3rd Semester, I'd download it.

@victoria When I referred to using the brush with water and no paint, that is during painting on the "paper". As far as I can see, the amount of paint or water on the brush when mixing paints has no effect on the amount of colour shade change. So I still can't find a method of making fine adjustments to the colours in the pallet.

I think Art Academy is an excellent programme but making you pay for it twice to get the full instructions is totally un-acceptable. I wouldn't buy the second on principal.

Thanks for your help, perhaps I will be able to post some of my efforts soon.

I couldn't live without flipnote!! Lately I have been pretty popular lately. Ive had my flipnote featured, get my flipnote in the rankings, and I have been in creator ranking 26 and 30 for the past few days.
Check out my most popular flipnote:
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I would be very happy if you added stars to it.
Here is the direct URL: http://flipnote.hatena.com/56F7682031CFE88C@DSi/movie/CFE88C_...

WOW!!! i'm geting a DSi today and the first things i was gonna' download was Flipnote and art academy. does art academy really help improve your drawing skill?

@Werble, Art Academy could teach a barnacle how to draw perfectly. If it doesn't improve your drawing skills tenfold, I will eat my hat.
@Scarecrow, The odd thing is about whites and blacks is the fact that, while normal colours increase/decrease the shade by one unit, whites and blacks increase/decrease the shades by four units. Essentially this means that if you're adding black to a colour and you've found a point where the shade you want is in between the shade you have now and the shade you'll have if add black once more, you can add the black to go a little past the shade you want, then add the original colour (blue/light green/red etc), you'll be moving back in smaller incremenents, making it easier pinpoint the exact shade. Hopefully this helps you get the perfect shade you're looking for.

@fatem, I see what you are getting at. I manage to arrive at the colour I want after squirting loads of paint. Maybe I will waste a bit less virtual paint now but it seems to be a cumbersome way to adjust colours. With real paints you would put more or less paint in as necessary to get the shade/colour you want.

Its an excellent programme but with serious limitations like why can't you reload a saved file after you start another painting.

How do I post pictures on this forum?

Upload it to somewhere (e.g Photobucket/DeviantArt) and then put the link inside:
[ img ] [ /img ].
Only without the spaces.

Thanks @fatem, I have to check out Photobucket first then.

I absolutely LOVE Art Academy and Flipnote! I just have one question: How do you save your work on the SD card? Someone please reply as soon as possible. Thanks!