With this program, you'll soon become an artist in no time.
To start off, this is not a video game, but more like a learning application focusing on art, which is fine for those who wish to take some time to learn about nifty techniques about strokes, shading, colors and more.
In First Semester, these programs teaches you about the basics like drawing a circle and transform that into an apple, or using red, blue and yellow paint colors to make a simple but pretty picture of the setting sun over the sea. You will also learn how to draw still life and make use of your new tools to help you work more easily.
There are six lessons to tackle, but also there are mini lessons you can tackle to see how YOU could draw. In all, there are nine in total.
Once you're finished with the tutorials and lessons, you could tackle Free Paint. In that mode, you are free to draw whatever you wish.
The controls found in this game are rather simple, mainly using a stylus, or a pen. The buttons doesn't do much, except pressing an X button to pull out the tool bars, START to pause, L/R which functions much like the X, and the rest is handled with the stylus. One of those strong points here is that how you draw accurately captures your strokes, impressively; it too makes it feel like you're actually drawing on a paper, except using the touch screen instead.
Next comes to animation, O.K. so there isn't much to see, but watching Vince's animations are impressive. Yea, he's your tutor for the Lessons Mode. Besides that, this game is pretty colorful and bright for this game, many reference pictures were bright and sharp to look at as well for the work you will be going through. And even a little history behind some pictures will be told by Vince. So overall, it's pretty good to see.
For the sounds, it somewhat captures me. Draw a pencil and you could hear scribbles, paint with a thin brush and a nice bit of splotchy sounds are some of the examples here, however no voice overs aren't included in this game.
For the music, it only plays at the menu screens and in Lessons. There is no music to work while drawing mainly because in Lessons Mode, it plays while Vince gives you advice and tips. SO if you want to listen to music, turn on your radio and get used to it.
There are also some nifty features which is compatible, for instance you can use your taken pictures on your DSi and use them to work on as a reference, zoom in to draw those tiny details, a grid tool for still life or whatever to draw with, and more for you to find out.
Sounds pretty good so far, but then I may as well have to point out some minor flaws, for instance there's only nine lessons, which is fine but you'll be done with them all in one day if possible.
Also you have only two save files, one for the lessons, and one to save your work, ONLY one. So that means if you want to start a new work, well then you'll have to delete your current work. Also you cannot save them onto your memory card.
Maybe more of these features will be included for the Second Semester, but we'll just wait and see. Oh and for the price, it's 800 DSi points for this software. If this is too expensive for all these, then look for something else, or practice them in your chatroom. Or otherwise, it's cheaper than to take an expensive course and go through all those boring lectures.
In conclusion, this is a great program to tackle to become an artist, with a smooth learning curve; you'll soon become a drawer in no time.