Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

sketch posts

Filed under: Fun, Web services

Odosketch is an elegant flash-based sketchpad


Odosketch is a drawing tool that's been around since 2006, but just caught my eye this month with its latest relaunch. It's a quick Flash-based way to do some drawing on a background that looks like a page in your trusty Moleskine sketchbook. You may not be as talented as some of the artists in the Odosketch featured gallery, but because of the way the app is designed, pretty much anything you draw with it looks good.

There's a selection of several brushes that vary in color and thickness, and it's just plain hard to make something look bad with them. The colors in Odosketch's limited palette all go together well, and I found myself accidentally achieving effects with my mouse that probably look better than anything I could do with a real brush. Also, Odosketch has an important feature that we take for granted in desktop apps, but some Flash projects unfortunately lack: you can actually save your work.

Filed under: Design, Fun, web 2.0

Befunky, for those of us who can't draw.

Stylized cartoon images are great, but what if you're not artistic enough to make one. That's where sites like Befunky can lend a helping hand.

Befunky takes images from your computer, webcam or on the web and with some input from you, creates a cartoonish effect that you can share with others. You're free to adjust the amount of sketching, color and pencil strokes applied to get the look you're after. If you want to further customize your image a host of borders and speech bubbles are available as well.

What's really interesting about Befunky is the use of layers to make editing so much easier. If you're familiar with imaging software like Photoshop or Gimp the ability to use layers is a must. While Befunky doesn't list the layers out, you do get the ability to send the active layers back or to the front which helps when you're trying to get that heart shaped frame just right.

Currently, the site supports the creation of images and avatars. Video effects are currently under development.

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Utilities, Blogging, Productivity, Web services

Sketch + broadcast = Sketchcast

Sketchcast screen shot
Another online sketch service, Sketchcast, has entered the market and this one has a couple of neat YouTube-like integration features. Record yourself creating a sketch, add a voice over if you like, then save it for posterity. Once you're done, Sketchcast automatically spits out a URL that you can send to others and a code you can embed in your own Web site or blog post. Sketchcast also gives you your own channel where you can store your sketches so other people can view them or subscribe to your RSS feed.

Read more →

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Kids, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Sketch 4 Secs - super hard Timewaster

Sketch 4 SecsSketch 4 Secs is an online Java game that asks you to try to replicate doodles using your mouse in 4 seconds or less. Drawing with the mouse is only ever sort of fun, so this game suffers from that knock right away. But worse, it's actually ridiculously hard. The first two levels aren't too bad, but level 3 asks you to try to doodle a pair of headphones with many lines.

Give it a try and let us know if we're out to lunch here. Fun, or freakishly hard?

Filed under: Fun, Photo, Web services

Retrievr: Find Flickr photos by sketching

RetrievrThough not supremely useful, Retrievr is undeniably cool. It's a web app that lets you draw a little sketch and then finds images on Flickr that match, to some degree or another, your sketch. The results are very fuzzy--drawing a red apple is just as likely to return photos of a cherry or a red Christmas tree ornament--but it's guaranteed to find you interesting pictures that, if you squint your eyes just so, are exactly what you're looking for.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio