The simple but brilliant iPad accessory known as Osmo, which takes real-world objects and movements and transforms them into onscreen gameplay, has a new trick up its sleeve. Its new “Masterpiece” app deploys the same clever attachment to help even the most art-challenged feel like a regular Raphael.
Masterpiece uses the Osmo’s clip-on mirror and an iPad’s front-facing camera to help you draw almost anything. The only extras you need to provide are a blank piece of paper, some pens or pencils, and a modicum of coordination.
The process is as simple as the proposition. Start by taking a photo or searching for an image within the app, which sources from Google Safe Search. You’re not limited to one or the other; you can select several images to include in one composition, so that you can pair a photo you’ve taken of a baked potato with a lion you found via the app’s integrated search function. For kids who just want a futuristic spin on an old standby, there are also canned “coloring book” projects within the app.
Once you select an image source and place a piece of paper in front of the iPad, the tablet’s screen shows a detailed outline of your subject and a live-video view of the surface in front of it. You can “trace” a subject by watching the screen while you draw on the paper, which takes a few seconds to get used to but generally works like a charm.
There are a few levels of detail you can toggle on and off for your tracing. You can start with a line-art mode, then adjust a slider to bring up different levels of shading to add depth, and then view the source image as a guide for coloring it in.
The result feels like a hybrid of tracing paper and the Matrix. With no sign of having received any assistance at all, you’ve produced a flawless still life of pretty much anything you can dream up.
In an interview, Osmo co-founder and CEO Pramod Sharma told WIRED that the app was originally conceived as an “endless coloring book,” and additional features tossed in and honed from there. Along with the drawing and coloring options, there’s an opportunity for kids to practice their cursive on a digital version of that dotted-line paper from elementary school.
According to Sharma, the drawing feature is the first Osmo experience that isn’t exclusively geared toward kids—and unlike the other Osmo games, you can enjoy it just as much solo. Children will still be a primary target, but it might also some adults the courage to start drawing again.
“Once you become an adult, one of the biggest fears is public speaking, and the second is probably drawing,” says Sharma. “Even the best drawers say they’re scared… Part of it is, in the beginning you want to draw basic stuff, but as you grow up you want to draw more complex things, and it’s hard to get the proportions and the angles right. [Masterpiece] is not about teaching to draw, it’s more about building confidence.”
The drawing you can produce is quite impressive—the fact that there aren’t any printed guidelines on the page make it look like everything is a freehand sketch, even though it was digitally “traced”—but the art itself comes with a bonus that may be even more impressive. While you draw, the app captures a video of your hand sketching out the picture, speeds it up like a time-lapse video, and lets you share it immediately via email.
“What we’ve seen with this video is that people love watching it, because it’s how this art became real,” says Sharma. “It’s going to capture anything you make as a piece of art. My daughter every day makes a lot of art—craft or drawings—and that’s hard to archive.”
According to Sharma and Osmo CTO and co-founder Jerome Scholler, beta testers for the app have already found alternative uses for Masterpiece. By placing an iPad with the Osmo attachment on the edge of a table pointing down to the floor, you can scale an onscreen image (and its guidelines) to a huge poster-size drawing.
One tester even used Osmo and the new app to decorate a cake.
“You need to put the iPad slightly higher,” said Scholler while propping it up on a thick book. “Basically, you want the surface of the cake to be as far away as the surface of the table (normally is). And then you just trace the lines.”
If you already own an Osmo, the free Masterpiece app is a must-download. Sharma and Scholler also say the 17-person Osmo team has additional apps in the pipeline, and that they’ve also been working with schools to get feedback on existing apps and ideas for future Osmo experiences.
Masterpiece launches today as a free iOS download in the App Store; the Osmo unit itself costs $79.99, which includes a variety of games.
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