Continuing the Nintendo-fuelled goodness from today's announcement of the 3DS XL - the new, larger 3DS announced this morning, comes news of one of the games that'll be launching alongside the new console, New Art Academy, a sequel to the two million copy selling DS game, which, while it didn't enjoy the mainstream success of games like Brain Training or New Super Mario Bros. DS, did develop quite a cult following. In fact, online artwork community, deviantART has scores of Art Academy pictures posted to it - and the similar drawing applications that have released across the various download stores suggests there's a fairly serious market out there for DS-related doodles.
Basically a fancy paint package for the 3DS with built in tutorials, if you don't know where to begin, New Art Academy features a selection of both introductory and advanced lessons, that take you over a variety of drawing and painting techniques, styles and materials, with many more promised as downloads at a later date. As with the original DS game, you can use the 3DS' built in camera to capture a reference image to draw from, or you can pick from a preset list of images, some of which display on the top screen as 3D videos, giving you more lifelike inspiration for your portraits - whether it's a tree's leaves blowing in the wind or a flowing river. There's also a Free Paint mode which gives you an unlimited blank canvas to draw without constraints, making use of the wide selection of art materials at your disposal.
One of the downloadable lessons will teach you how to draw a Goomba, with the help of one of Nintendo's own artists.
New Art Academy expands the toolbox of paints and pencils from the previous game with a range of coloured pencils and pastels. You also get a bunch of artist's accessories to help you create more realistic masterpieces, whether it's testing your implement of choice on a Scratch Pad, choosing similar or complimentary colours with the Colour Wheel or smoothly blending pastels together with the imaginatively named Blending tool.
Where's the fun in creating a bunch of masterpieces though, if no-one else will see them? While your art is hung in a virtual art gallery in your game, New Art Academy gives you a whole host of possibilities for showing off your talents to friends and family - you can send your favourites via SpotPass or use them as backgrounds in the Nintendo Letter Box application, as well as giving them art lessens over local wireless or online.
New Art Academy for the 3DS launches on the 28th of July, the same day as the new 3DS XL whose larger screen would definitely be handy for creating works of art. And for those of you that like creating things, the upcoming Freakyforms Deluxe: Your Creations, Alive! may also be of interest - so stay tuned!
