Becoming an artist requires skill, patience, creative thinking and other attributes, but as the saying goes; ‘practice makes perfect!’ Created by Collavier and is the second instalment to earlier game, Comic Workshop has made it possible for you to get creative using a stylus and your 3DS.
As some people are born with artistic talent, I am unfortunately not one of them, but I do enjoy reading manga’s mainly because of the art style. Which is why I wanted to give this new piece of software a try which is available on the Nintendo 3DS eshop.
Once you start the game, you will see three choices on the touch screen; tutorial, hand calibration and ‘Time-to-draw!’ The tutorial is a great way to understand the game better in smaller doses as once you click on the icon you will be shown a total of 29 different lessons; from how to change from a pencil to a brush to choosing a new colour. Usually I skip tutorials but I have been going through the tutorials one by one and I’m glad I did as it has made my drawing experience a lot smoother than just heading into the game blindly so it’s definitely worth the time!
For all you lefties out there, this game accommodates for all hand types as you can make a selection with just a tap of your stylus so doodle to your hearts content! Now the fun begins as you go into the main drawing mode. The first thing you will see is a folder, this represents your ‘projects’ that you can create and you have the option to make other folders for your future projects.
The next steps to becoming an ‘artist’ is to have paper and drawing equipment, which will appear once you have selected your folder. The layout is very easy to navigate around, especially if you have done your homework with the tutorials. The controls are pretty simple too, just use the stylus to move the page, zoom in and out and change the pencil size etc. or if you wanted you can use the D-Pad to navigate around. There is a lot of stuff to try out and explore and I really enjoyed the function where you can create your own colour if the default choices are not what you’re looking for.
The sounds in this game are quite relaxing and therapeutic which is perfect for getting you in the mood to create some sweet, sweet drawings (sorry, that was bad!). If you prefer to draw away in silence then you can always turn your sound off whenever you would like, you’re the boss.
The graphics are very artsy and the main menu is drawn in a very manga/cartoon way which I like very much as it’s different to any other games that I have played. The background images are also very life-like and detailed and that sets the tone to the player that you’re actually in a real artistic workshop. The negative side of the game is that as I would expect from a 3DS game, I would assume some parts of the game would be in 3D, but as I started creating my art it seems the game doesn’t have any 3D aspects which is a shame.
If you have ever had a game crash on you and you don’t know whether you have saved or not, then don’t fear as this game loves to save whenever it gets the chance. Each time you make a selection on the main menu it will save, if you open your folder it will save and of course, when you leave your masterpiece the game will have your back and save for you. Of course this isn’t a bad thing, I found it super helpful as I have a tendency of forgetting to save games and I bet you can guess how that turned out for me (input sad face).
After playing through this game some more and creating some sort of strange doodles, I would say it is a nice game for people who are into drawing and are better at it than I am! Since I have no artistic bone in my body I soon became a little tired of drawing blobs of mess with my stylus. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience to draw with my 3DS compared to using a real life pencil and paper which was great fun. So if you’re a budding artist or interested in creating your very own manga then Comic Workshop 2 is always open for you.
REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo 3DS code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.
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