Virtual canvas with an emphasis on brush variety

Flowpaint is a virtual painting app that allows your to cover your canvas as if you were using real brushes and paints.

Any painter who has used a virtual drawing app can be forgiven for not really enjoying the experience – they’re just not realistic. Luckily there are graphic editors that try to emulate, with greater or lesser success, the sensations you get when painting with actual pens and brushes, and not a computer mouse or a digital tablet. Flowpaint is one of those editors, but even though it’s a good start, it still needs quite a lot of development.

Flowpaint doesn’t require installation, only the Java Runtime Environment. It features a very simple interface with no configuration options at all, just the ability to save, clear picture and undo. The right-side panel includes all the drawing tools, though surprisingly Flowpaint has no color palette – you simply have different types of brushes, each one of them with a different color.

Flowpaint’s tools are divided into Sketching, Painting and Effects. The bottom half of the panel allows you to make tweaks to these effects, but you’ll just have to experiment, as it’s not at all clear what each option does. Despite these limitations, Flowpaint is an attractive painting app, perfect to start experimenting with realistic digital tools, but there’s just no way it’s as advanced as other programs like ArtWeaver or TwistedBrush.

Flowpaint is a simple drawing tool with an interesting array of options, but it still falls short of expectations when compared to other similar programs.

Fixed bugsIssue 50 (High): When using a tablet, there is often a blob at the start of a stroke when using a soft stroke Known open bugsIssue 62 (High): Resizing Flowpaint window freezes Flowpaint up to minutes if a picture has been drawnIssue 43 (Medium): Pressure doesn’t work on 64 bit WindowsIssue 39 (Medium): Concurrent modification exception sometimes thrown if user draws while the picture is re-rendering when the window has been re-sizedIssue 55 (Medium): Stroke has texture warping artefacts, especially when it is changing sizeIssue 66 (Medium): Drawing cursor is double-size on windowsIssue 72 (Medium): Some brush strokes have jagged edges and interior

Changes

• Fixed bugsIssue 50 (High): When using a tablet, there is often a blob at the start of a stroke when using a soft stroke Known open bugsIssue 62 (High): Resizing Flowpaint window freezes Flowpaint up to minutes if a picture has been drawnIssue 43 (Medium): Pressure doesn’t work on 64 bit WindowsIssue 39 (Medium): Concurrent modification exception sometimes thrown if user draws while the picture is re-rendering when the window has been re-sizedIssue 55 (Medium): Stroke has texture warping artefacts, especially when it is changing sizeIssue 66 (Medium): Drawing cursor is double-size on windowsIssue 72 (Medium): Some brush strokes have jagged edges and interior