viziblr

There was a time not too long ago I thought digital painting pretty much ended with Corel Painter (original “Fractal Design Painter”). Then came a new crop of tools like ArtRage and SketchBook and they brought some innovation in the painting experience. And now thanks to the modern capabilities of HTML5 web browsers, we are seeing a new wave on online creative apps like Mr. Doob’s Harmony and the very latest announcement from the deviantART community about a tool called deviantART Muro

What I really enjoy about some of these tools like Harmony and deviantART Muro is that they don’t constrain themselves to mimicking traditional brushes – they have created wonderful new types of brushes that could only be used in digital form.

Here’s an example from deviantART Muro – I simply drew the letter “g” in in stroke with the “nightmare” brush.

And then I drew the letter “g” again using the “smoke” brush. (You’ll need to click on the image below to see a larger version so that the true detail this brush produces is obvious)

And randomly playing around with the strokes will give a nice ethereal effect

These screenshots don’t do justice the the kind of things you can create. For better examples look at the gallery.

Some notable features

• Has an UNDO command
• Works with Wacom pressure sensitive tablets.

It’s remarkable that they have built such a responsive, rich-feeling application, as an entirely browser-based experience. And as multi-touch interaction continues to work its way into our daily experiences, I can’t wait to see how innovators will take advantage of touch to enhance our experiences in digital creativity.