Oekaki
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Oekaki (お絵描き ) is the Japanese term to describe the act of drawing, meaning "doodle or scribble".
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[edit] Ekaki Uta - Drawing Songs
In Japan, songs that describe how to draw animals and/or favorite characters are called "Ekaki Uta." These songs are supposed to help children remember how to draw something by incorporating drawing directions into the lyrics. (e.g, first you draw a circle, then you dot the eyes, draw a great big smile, etc...) If they memorize the song, which is easy to do because it's usually a catchy melody, effectively they've remembered how to draw what the song describes. Children at play often sing these songs as they doodle on paper or in playground sand. Drawing songs exist for many children's cartoon characters in Japan, for example Keroro Shotai and Doraemon.
[edit] Oekaki internet forum
Oekaki internet forum systems allow artists to draw pictures with a drawing program stored on a server and post their drawings on the internet forum. Artists do not upload their images on Oekaki internet forum systems; they draw pictures inside web browsers with a computer mouse, a graphics tablet, or a touch screen. However, some versions of Oekaki software do allow uploads, and usually the rules of that Oekaki will state that only x number of uploads in a week are allowed.
The underlying computer technology used in Oekaki can be a Java applet or ActiveX. Some Oekaki systems offer enough features to create professional-looking images. The resulting picture is usually in dimensions of a few hundred pixels wide or long. The most popular applets used on English internet forums are OekakiBBS, PaintBBS, and Shi-Painter.
If the internet forum and the program applet are both equipped for it, the artist can choose to use an animation feature which allows the internet forum users to watch a stroke-by-stroke animation of the image being drawn. Some Oekaki internet forums also have a Continue feature (also known as Retouch), which allows the artist to save the image to the internet forum and continue work on it later. Some implementations of Continue/Retouch retain image layers only when an image is saved as an animation.
Oekaki system is extremely popular among the anime Internet subculture. Anime fans can post their pictures by computers which do not have raster graphics editor programs installed. Oekaki system enables a community gathering to share fanart and offer critiques and compliments.
There are a remarkable number of Oekaki message boards, Oekaki Central being one of the largest. People can create their own Oekaki board at sites such [1], though this site is often hard to use for non-Japanese-speakers because much of it is in Japanese or poorly translated English.
[edit] Examples of Oekaki applets
OekakiBBS was developed by OekakiBBS. It was the original Oekaki applet and has smaller palettes and fewer screentones than modern-day alternatives. Its features include productive color blending, multiple layer support, masks and animation saving.
PaintBBS is a simple applet created by Shi-chan, which utilises two layers and a mask system. It has many different palettes that can be used for a variety of different effects. As of version 2.04, the program detects whether the user's computer is set to Japanese or English and displays the text on the tool buttons accordingly.
OekakiPoteto by RanmaGuy was an important applet in English, after he stopped developing it, Waccoon based on that and created Wacintaki Poteto which is still the most important English Oekaki applet.
There are many other Oekaki applets, such as PictureBBS and BBSPainter, but they are far less common. Lascaux Sketch, the featured applet on 2draw is not publicly distributed but is probably the most powerful Oekaki around.
[edit] External links
[edit] Oekaki scripts
- Wacintaki Poteto English
- Oekaki BBS Japanese
[edit] References
- Anime Oekaki Board
- Oekaki Central
- 涂鸦王国 Chinese oekaki
- Rate my drawings
- 2Draw
- Oekaki Art
