Topic: Art Academy: First Semester (First Impressions?)

Just saw this was released as an 800 point (suprirising, too, that we get 2 800+ pt updates today.) What do you guys think of this one so far?

B

I got it for the heck of it because it said there was a free pain mode and that reminded me of mario paint.

It's actually a pretty decent pain program if you like to draw.

There's a lesson mode, which I assume teaches you the basics of drawing/painting. i haven't started this yes.

The free paint mode is really cool though.
You have various pencil options
Points (sharp or more sketch -like strokes)
Types of pencils (2h, HB, 2b erasor)

There's a basic zoom function with 1 setting, and you can move around with the directional pad.
There is a grid option that lets you break up the screen into 49 squares
A your image button for your photo imports.

And options menu with continue, save, open from album, exhibit in album, clear and quit.

The two options, pain mode and your image I"ll go into detail.
You can if you want, go from pencil to pain mode (you can't go back to pencil mode if you do this)
You then get options for the brush, with 6 different widths, and colour options.
The colour options is actually really deep. You have the basic 10 colours to pick from, but room for 10 more. You can select a free square (or replace on of the basic colours actually so that's 20 custom colours) and put your own colour on it. But you do it like a real painter.
You take say red, and add a little green if you want to get a more orange colour, or add some black to make it darker.
There is also a thumb tack image that lets you find a colour on an image you imported from your photo album.
Also while your painting, there is no "undo" mode. If you mess up, you mess up. You can paint over it, but you get realistic effect. Say you paint red somewhere you didn't want to and want to cover it with green. Those colours will mix a little, causing your stroke to change colour.

You then can select how much pain you want on the brush (while painting the paint will run out and you'll have to lift the stylus to add more paint) or add water to make the paint last longer but have a different look to it.

You can import images from your album. You can't directly change them. They are more for viewing when painting, like still life if you must. Or if you want to do a portrait or something, you can take a pic of someones face instead of guess or have them stand there.

You can only save ONE painting in the game letting you edit it later, however you can export as many paintings as you want to the photo album and thus Facebook.

I don't know how good the lessons are, but for anyone who likes to draw, this drawing program works MUCH MUCH better then flipnote in terms of making a pretty image. (can't animate or add sounds though) and it would've been neat if there was a way to upload images to a Nintendo "gallery" or sorts for people to look at.
Definitely a buy if you like drawing. This app came out of no where. lol
Also I'll not it was apparently made by the same guys who did Battalion Wars 2.
Oh and the menu music is nice.

Edit:
I just did Lesson one and it does just teach you basic art skills as well as how to use the program, along with button shortcuts.

Also for people wondering about the size. It's 112 blocks.
800 points.

Sounds great! I just got my DSi less than an hour ago and this already appeals to me.

How does it compare to using DSiPaint through the browser? Is the difference significant enough to pay money for?

Erm. I'm sorry, but as neat and as free as DSiPaint is, it sucks. Which isn't the makers fault. It's limited technically to what it can do with the DSi Broswer.
This game blows it out of the water, though I guess the one thing DSiPaint is better at is sharing. You can't share your images online except by uploading your images to facebook, then you can do whatever you want with the image I guess.

Is this paint program worth 800 points?

I only have 1500 points left, so I have to decide between this and Oscar.

What does everyone think?

Going entirely by what I'm hearing, it sounds like this is better value.

I'm an art student and this is enticing me to drop 800 points for it.

I must say, I was rather skeptical of this at first. I decided to take the plunge because the last time I did this on a Nintendo game (Bonsai Barber), It really paid off. I gotta say, I'm loving this game/app/tool alot! I just got finished with the tree lesson and was really surprised at what came out of it! It's amazing how well the DSi can simulate an actual pencil and actual paints. If I didn't know any better, I'd say all my works so far were just pictures of things done in real life. The lessons, at least up to this point, are very in-depth and can really teach alot about art. It actually feels like taking an art class on your DSi! The only complaint I can think of is of course, the price. While I do believe this is worth the asking price, I can't help but feel like it should have been 5 dollars. However, considering what you can do with this thing, the price is fair. This and Flipnote are a great start to the apps market on the DSi. Keep them coming, Nintendo!

Another reason for me to get a dsi someday. Anothet one was Flipnote.

I just finished the second lesson (the pear) and I am loving this so far! I love how it really does teach you drawing and painting techniques and it really feels like you're being taught something of value (unlike the 16 in 1 Dictionary in Europe's DSiWare, etc.) I'm hoping this program has many other lessons and activities to justify its pricetag, but I think that it already has. Solid app, thanks Nintendo! I give Art Academy: First Semester 9 out of 10 stars (the 9th star was for originality and ingenuity.)

B

I guess MvsDK will be put on hold until I get this then.

Great impressions guys! I may get this tonight especially with my design/art classes in College practically every day. I think this could really help me! Any complaints at all? On the game page, someone mentioned about "restrictions?

I love this. I just completed the lesson on the lime. It walks you through each step so that you can learn to draw or paint on your own instead of copying what Vince does. I recommend using the photo as your reference and only switching to Vince's picture when you want to check what he did.

The basic painting lesson:

This was pretty simple. I didn't even bother to cover all my pencil lines! If you look closely, you can notice how it looks like it was made with real paint. This is especially noticeable on the grass.

The sketch from life:

This is good practice with pencils. I'm not good at crosshatching but I think this turned out alright.

The painting from life:

For most of this lesson, I thought my picture looked better than Vince's... but then he did much better at the last step and his painting turned out much better. Not that it's a contest or anything.

I haven't done any of the mini-lessons yet.

So u couldn't just save the art as pictures in the Photo album on the DSi and access those photos in Flipnote? (Of course it would still be in black and white though)

Looks great!!

You save them to the photo album by default, along with any other pics you take with your camera and don't move elsewhere. Haven't specifically tried importing them into Flipnote, but I don't see any reason you wouldn't be able to.

Wow. The images from the DSi aren't that bad.......... when they're not being taken with the crap cameras.

Great program! Check out the pics that Taya posted! I love the lessons and the music and the free paint mode... I give this 8 out of 10 stars! Go grab it today. Great value and app!!