Review: Colors! 3D is absolutely brilliant

Rock solid, friendly and intelligently designed, Colors! 3D arrived on eShop today, coupling a wonderful art studio with a fun online gallery for sharing your creations with the world.

From its clear, helpful tutorial to the smart use of the 3DS interface, painting with Colors! 3D is a joy. All the basic tools you’d expect in a mobile paint program are in place, and very easy to access and modify. 3D comes into play in the form of five layers which can be switched back and forth, copied and made invisible at will. Even novices can easily create a background sky, a central plane main subject, and a top plane foreground element for instant depth. 3D art tools have never before been so smartly and intuitively presented.

Even if you choose to turn the 3D off, you’ve still got an amazingly smooth art program at your fingertips. Whether zooming in and out with the circle pad or undoing mistakes with the right shoulder button, everything makes sense. This program has been tweaked and polished to the point where folks of all skill levels can have fun exploring its possibilities.

Take a look at this amateurish little giraffe that some blog writer doodled: no one will mistake it for professional art, but it ain’t bad for a first attempt after a two minute tutorial, if I do say so…er….

Once you’ve saved and named your masterpiece, you can upload it to the Colors! 3D online gallery, where PC and 3DS owners alike can view your work in 2D and 3D — and even watch a video of your creation process (the program saves every brush stroke for playback, so don’t doodle anything you don’t want everyone to see!) The gallery is already thriving with everything from charming children’s art to amazingly detailed renderings and everything in between.

http://colorslive.com/

Well worth its $6.99 asking price, Colors! 3D is a masterpiece of smart design. Chalk up another winner for the eShop!