PLAY THE FACE GAME
on your Pocket PC
and learn computer drawing

MAKE FACES ON YOUR POCKET PC!

Play the Face Game on your Pocket PC - or even in Word on your desktop - and you never know. You might learn something useful about computer drawing.

VECTOR DRAWING

There are two ways of making an image on a handheld or desktop computer. 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.

Pocket Notes that comes with a Pocket PC has simple vector drawing tools. You can have a bit of fun making faces in Pocket Notes and really get the feel of vector drawing.

If you don't have a Pocket PC, you can play the face game in Microsoft Word or any document editor that offers a Drawing mode. In Word, go to to Tools - Customize and choose the Drawing toolbar to set up Word as a vector drawing pad. My own Word for Mac has all sorts of drawing tools.

In Pocket Notes, hold down the stylus on a line in drawing mode, and a box will appear around it. Dragging at the corners and sides of the box allows you to shrink, expand, rotate or distort the selected line. (I have to admit this is not as easy on my new HTC TyTn as it was on my old Ipaq, but however responsive your own particular machine, persevere and you'll get the hang of it.)

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.

Have a go and see.

KIT

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

Using a mouse to draw with at the desktop can be frustrating. A tablet and stylus is an excellent investment for any kind of desktop drawing. Most Wacom tablets come with a mouse as well as a pen. Not to mention the bonus of free software. Painter Essentials or Photoshop Elements are often bundled with Wacom tablets.

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HOW DID THE OWL LOSE HIS FEATHERS?

He went to the desktop and back.

Black and white Pocket Notepad drawings can be opened in Pocket Word where you can add some colour. However, results can't 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!

* PURPLE TIP * Capturing the Pocket PC Notepad screen will convert your drawing to a bitmap and preserve it as intended.