PLAY THE FACE GAME
and learn computer drawing

VECTOR DRAWING

There are two ways of making an image on a computer - or come to that, a smartphone or PDA. Bitmap painting and vector drawing. When you're painting, you lay down the pixels one by one like a tapestry. When you're vector drawing, you click and drag to make lines, shapes and fills which are recorded mathematically.

Computer painting and drawing are two quite different experiences

With vector drawing, instead of tracing a fine line, you're dotting down points and pushing and pulling at little handles to alter angles.

Vector drawing feels more like sculpture than painting.

The illustrations below were made some while ago in Notes on a Pocket PC. Pocket PCs are not so thick on the ground these days, but you can make faces in the same way in Microsoft Word. Other word processors may come with similar drawing tools.

MAKING FACES

The faces below were all made from just one circle and a line.

By duplicating, rotating and distorting these two simple shapes, you can make the eyes, ears and nose and give them all kinds of expressions. It's an addictive pastime to see how different you can make your faces.

You won't have any difficulty making a face. Almost any shape with two dots and a line in the right place can be seen as a face. In fact the earliest smileys didn't even have the two dots for eyes.

Creating facial expressions can be trickier. The tiniest alteration can completely alter an expression.

KIT

A handheld is easy to draw on because you can pick it up like a sketchpad.

If you're lucky enough to have an iphone, you don't even need a stylus. Just a finger. However, I haven't yet come across an iPhone app that you can use to sculpture faces as shown here.

Using a mouse to draw with at the desktop can be frustrating. A tablet and stylus is really a must for any kind of desktop drawing. You may also be lucky enough to get the bonus of free software. Painter Essentials or Photoshop Elements are often bundled with Wacom tablets.

---

HOW DID THE OWL LOSE HIS FEATHERS?

He went to the desktop and back.

I had a bit of a surprise when I made these drawings on my old Pocket PC. I found that black and white Pocket Notepad drawings could be opened in Pocket Word where I could add some colour. However, results could not be guaranteed to stick.

This owl was coloured purple all over in Pocket Word. Then of course it was synchronised to the desktop and back, along with everything else. It acquired an off-the-shoulder outfit in the process.

On making the round trip again, the bird acquired an even more trendy costume - and exchanged his contact lenses for a pair of designer sunglasses!

Capturing your vector screen will convert your drawing to a bitmap and preserve it as intended.