Angela Porter

I was pleased to be told by Shelly and Kelly at Faction Apps that there’s been an update to the Colorist app.  That means I had to have another play!

The image above is one from my first book for the Colorist app – Doodle Worlds.  Many areas have been filled in using the original pencil tool, which is great as it allows for overlaying of colours as well as being pressure sensitive if your device allows for that (my Microsoft Surface Book certainly does!).

It took me a while to get used to how the pencil works in the app, but that’s not a problem as either the undo or eraser tools allow you to completely remove anything you’re not happy with.  (The eraser is also useful for removing colour to create a highlight!).

Bucket Tool

One of the new tools is a bucket-fill, which is great for filling areas with flat, solid colour.  I used this tool for the pink monster.  The pencil tool can then be used to add shading/highlights over the base colour.

A useful tool is the bucket tool as it allows for quickly filling areas with a solid colour, even teeny-tiny areas thanks to the ability to zoom in on the image! This saves some time and effort, which can then be spent on carefully adding the shading and highlights to the area.

Marker Tool

This is my favourite addition to the tool box in the Colorist app!  I love the solid colour it lays down. The colours aren’t transparent, however, so blending isn’t yet possible with them ( perhaps that’ll appear in a future update of the app).  Markers (especially Chameleon pens) are my favourite way of adding colour to drawings like this on paper, so I look forward to this tool being developed more in the future (fingers crossed and maybe a bit of pleading from me!).

What I love most about this tool is that I can draw and doodle and add texture and pattern to the image with the solid lines that I prefer in my art. I did this with ease on the flower next to the orange and white stripey twisty thing.

The wide range of colours available in the colour palette mean that highlights and shadows can be achieved, so long as a subtle blend from one colour to another isn’t required.  However, I’ve just thought that a clever use of the pencil tool may allow this to happen.  I’ll have to try that out!

Eyedropper tool

I didn’t make any use of this tool, but I’m likely to in the future as it means that you can easily select a colour you’ve previously used in the image being coloured without going to the palette and ttrying to remember just which shade of, say, blue it was you used.

Sketching in the Colorist App

The ability to sketch within the app, and save the drawings too, is the fab new feature.  I really like this, especially with the marker pen tool.

Usually, I use Autodesk Sketchbook  for drawing on my Surface book.  One of the weird things about drawing on the Surface with the pen is that there always seems to be some wobble in the line, even if the line drawn is smooth.  Autodesk has a smoothing tool, which in the Pro version you can set to a level that suits the art  you are doing at the time.

Although the Sketch function in Colorist doesn’t have the smoothing tool (yet?) it works just as well as Sketchbook for the kind of doodly, abstract, whimsical art I do.  The image above is a drawing I did in Colorist last night, it took an hour or so to achieve.

I enjoyed using this function, though not being able to rotate the digi-paper meant it was a tad awkward for me to draw certain things.  However, Colorist isn’t designed as a  dedicated drawing/art app, but I do wonder if a ‘pro’ version could be developed where a small fee is paid for such a functionality. The latest updates certainly suggest to me that there’s a possibility that this could be a direction the app could take in the future.

My verdict

I really like the updates, especially the marker and the sketch function. Congratulations to all at Faction Apps!

The suggestions I’ve made above for extending the additions in the future are not criticisms of the great updates made, but they would take this app beyond that of being just a colouring app, so I’m well aware they may not happen.

However, I do believe this app could evolve from being a colouring app into something more…