GDC08: Inchworm: Mario Paint meets Photoshop
It has been almost a year since we heard anything new about Fatbits Pocket Painter, and we were beginning to worry that the project had been abandoned. While homebrewers already have Colors! to satisfy their DS-digital-painting needs, we really wanted to see what Bob Sabiston, the programmer behind Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly's Rotoshop software, had come up with.
Dismissing concerns of its halted development, the painting and animation application has appeared at GDC, this time under the name Inchworm. Along with its reintroduction comes a new site packed with tutorial videos and user-uploaded samples/flipbooks. Artists can easily create and share their work online, all with a robust selection of drawing and editing tools.
One unique feature we spotted in Inchworm is the ability to draw under a painting without having to create and move around new layers. Very useful for animation, we hear!
We're not sure if Inchworm has found a publisher yet, but we hope someone helps this program hit the mainstream market. Bob Sabiston definitely sees potential in the software: "If people can make money selling math and brain teasers to kids, imagine how popular a program that lets you draw and make cartoons [would be]!"
