x : vector art :: Sculptris : 3-D models?
June 3, 2010 9:12 AM   Subscribe

Is there a vector drawing program that hides all the splines, NURBS, beziers, and what-have-you? I just want to doodle and color!

I'd just like to be able to draw a picture and color it in like a coloring book... but still be able to edit the lines or do away with them completely, or deform the shapes... all the things that vector programs are best at.

Flash seems to be able to do this, but I don't want to buy (or pirate) an animation/programming studio when all I want to do is doodle cartoon animals.

Is there such a beast? For Windows?
posted by Jonathan Harford to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Inkscape is an open source vector drawing app for all platforms. Ultimately, though, you're probably better off acquiring *ahem* some old version of Flash. It's the closest to what you want.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 10:18 AM on June 3, 2010


Inkscape will do this and it's free. As well as freehand drawing tools it has a sculpt tool which allows you to deform lines and shapes by pushing them around rather than adjusting bezier curves.
posted by tallus at 10:26 AM on June 3, 2010


Response by poster: Oh, I'm aware of Inkscape, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as intuitive as what I want -- for instance, if I draw a figure eight I can't set the fill for only one of the loops.

Wait, what's this spilling bucket icon? Hmmm... it fills only one loop, but it doesn't reach to the edges. Not perfect, but clearly I wrote off Inkscape too soon.
posted by Jonathan Harford at 11:11 AM on June 3, 2010


People use CorelDRAW as an artistic tool all the time. Go here and check out the gallery.

I'm not sure it really leaves you any better of than just plain bitmap painting. If you record each stroke as a vector object, a decent painting will consist of many thousands of strokes. Editing individual strokes is probably confusing. Still, as evidenced in the gallery, people do it.

I'm pretty sure people do the same thing in Illustrator. You just have to figure out what parts of the UI you care about and ignore the rest.
posted by chairface at 4:08 PM on June 4, 2010


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