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Show HN: Drawbang - Instagram for pixel art

36 points by potomak 14y ago

monatron 14y ago
I really like this idea! However, I think the value of this really lies in building a community of users that share their drawings. That's what makes instagram really great and "sticky". I think putting a $1.99 barrier to entry into the ecosystem could be detrimental to the growth you would need for this to take off.
sgdesign 14y ago
Very cool. I've had the idea of transforming http://www.patternify.com/ http://www.patternify.com/ into something like this for a long time, but I'm glad somebody else did it :)
t_hozumi 14y ago
Very nice! I can imagine this app will get many users and create interesting community. And I think that initial paying model unnecessarily limits potential users since there will be many way to monetize.
TheZenPsycho 14y ago
clearly it's an idea whose time has come since i had almost exactly the same idea last saturday https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269678506475151362 https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269678506475151362 and then followed through a day later https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269942225394348033 https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269942225394348033
highace 14y ago
Oh come on. "Instagram for pixel art"? When will the baity associations end. The description on the app store sums it up perfectly - "Draw! is a pixel art editor. Draw 16 x 16 animated pictures and share them with your friends."
- jgv 14y ago
  I agree. I'm not sure how this is at all like Instagram. Is it because there is a feed? Then why not the Twitter for pixel art?
  - potomak 14y ago
    Because I keep it for the next post!
    - jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
      That kind of honesty my friend, will gain you enemies. In other news I think it is missing features to be a commercial product; I don't know too much about iOS but if maybe you can convert it to emoticons that can be used in chat, or being a being able to customize size instead of the forced 16*16 would be nice, or a public gallery and being able to edit other people animations.
ArekDymalski 14y ago
Sweet. Any chance for Android version?
- potomak 14y ago
  Not in the near future.
unalone 14y ago
Neat. Your challenge here will be finding a large enough community of people who want to put the time and effort into illustrating and animating this – enough to create a stream of new content for users. Instagram caught on in part because taking a photo is so easy. None of the composition involved in writing even a 140-character tweet: you just hold up the camera and snap. (Yes, photography involves composition, but pretty filters aid even the worst photographers there.) Do you have any idea of how you'll encourage enough content to create a meaningful feed?
- potomak 14y ago
  I have one, it's called "forking" and it'll be ready soon.
  - unalone 14y ago
    Forking's always fun. When I interned at Aviary the forked content was sometimes the most interesting. A word of warning, gleaned from Aviary's eventual failure in that market: forking has a tendency to reduce somebody's feed to a bunch of images that look almost exactly the same. The difference being, lots of the forks will be shoddier and lower-quality than the original. It can make a feed far less engaging in far less time. You can fix that by attaching all forked projects together in a feed, but then you're back to square one: not enough original content hitting a user's feed.
- tomwalsham 14y ago
  Just as a reference point, this brought to mind an old app (in the desktop sense) from 2001 - http://www.16color.com/ http://www.16color.com/ The site is still up, and they claim 40,000 movies were created between 1999 and 2004 (timeline from the DVD : http://www.amazon.com/Best-16-Color-DVD/dp/B000BD98AO/ http://www.amazon.com/Best-16-Color-DVD/dp/B000BD98AO/) I don't think content volume is an issue if the right channel can be found, but you're right that the Instagram comparison is not the correct order of magnitude. disclaimer: I have no relation to 16color, apart from enjoying it over a decade ago, and just discovered one of my animations was actually on their DVD.
olgeni 14y ago
Cute, but the square pixels actually look like small rectangles to me. How did it get past legal? BTW, we really need an 8-bit GarageBand with sharing features.
- ArekDymalski 14y ago
  That was my thought too - 8bit sequencer with 16 steps and chiptune sounds.
- dkurth 14y ago
  I don't know if you're joking, but I would love an app like Garage Band for making 8-bit/chiptune music!
  - olgeni 14y ago
    Seriously - and you should be able to choose AY-8192, SID or whatever. It could also listen to a tune and render it back as 8-bit sound :)
bsaul 14y ago
Hey, i did https://itunes.apple.com/app/world-of-pictos-by-simple-app/id473964357 https://itunes.apple.com/app/world-of-pictos-by-simple-app/i... , please contact me using the "contact" if interested...
justjimmy 14y ago
Nice idea! What are other similar apps that did this? (Assuming you did research). I see bsaul did something similar but he used geolocation as sharing platform…interesting… And why the restrictive color palette? To create the nostalgic effect of old video games?
- evincarofautumn 14y ago
  A limited palette is traditional, and pixel art is very traditionalist, as both an art form and a community of artists. That’s not to say there’s no innovation—plenty of—but it’s always with the same body of techniques: palette minimisation, antialiasing, dithering, hardware restrictions, and a large dose of colour theory.
dcaranda 14y ago
Awesome. I think the format (picture feed) has the potential to work across a bunch of verticals - movie posters (to get movie recommendations), art (to get gallery recommendations), food, etc. Pixel art is a great choice. The emphasis is on creation and expression - and maybe it hits a sweet spot - it requires more work than instagram (making it more legitimate as an art/craft) but less than creating the mona lisa... You should get eBoy to use it: http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/ http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/
gfalcao 14y ago
Looks nice but started too expensive. Why don't you put it free to get user acquisition and then you raise the price ?
- dcaranda 14y ago
  I think pixel art appeals sufficiently enough to a niche audience that it can demand the fee.
fufulabs 14y ago
Hi, we made an app called Tinygram (http://tiny.by http://tiny.by) that I think is more Instagramm-y (uggh!) than this. Its not done yet (missing a few big features) but it has a smaller canvas 10x10 and a unique way of choosing color shades and doing animation. It already has a sizeable community and sputtering of new content (pixel art is hard for most people we discovered.) It is an interesting community building experience so far. Anyhow in case you are curious on how closer it is to Insatgram, its free at http://bit.ly/tinygramming http://bit.ly/tinygramming .

36 points by potomak 14y ago

I really like this idea! However, I think the value of this really lies in building a community of users that share their drawings. That's what makes instagram really great and "sticky". I think putting a $1.99 barrier to entry into the ecosystem could be detrimental to the growth you would need for this to take off.

sgdesign 14y ago

Very cool. I've had the idea of transforming http://www.patternify.com/ http://www.patternify.com/ into something like this for a long time, but I'm glad somebody else did it :)

t_hozumi 14y ago

Very nice! I can imagine this app will get many users and create interesting community. And I think that initial paying model unnecessarily limits potential users since there will be many way to monetize.

TheZenPsycho 14y ago

clearly it's an idea whose time has come since i had almost exactly the same idea last saturday https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269678506475151362 https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269678506475151362 and then followed through a day later https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269942225394348033 https://twitter.com/zenpsycho/status/269942225394348033

highace 14y ago

Oh come on. "Instagram for pixel art"? When will the baity associations end. The description on the app store sums it up perfectly - "Draw! is a pixel art editor. Draw 16 x 16 animated pictures and share them with your friends."

jgv 14y ago
I agree. I'm not sure how this is at all like Instagram. Is it because there is a feed? Then why not the Twitter for pixel art?
- potomak 14y ago
  Because I keep it for the next post!
  - jQueryIsAwesome 14y ago
    That kind of honesty my friend, will gain you enemies. In other news I think it is missing features to be a commercial product; I don't know too much about iOS but if maybe you can convert it to emoticons that can be used in chat, or being a being able to customize size instead of the forced 16*16 would be nice, or a public gallery and being able to edit other people animations.

ArekDymalski 14y ago

Sweet. Any chance for Android version?

potomak 14y ago
Not in the near future.

unalone 14y ago

Neat. Your challenge here will be finding a large enough community of people who want to put the time and effort into illustrating and animating this – enough to create a stream of new content for users. Instagram caught on in part because taking a photo is so easy. None of the composition involved in writing even a 140-character tweet: you just hold up the camera and snap. (Yes, photography involves composition, but pretty filters aid even the worst photographers there.) Do you have any idea of how you'll encourage enough content to create a meaningful feed?

potomak 14y ago
I have one, it's called "forking" and it'll be ready soon.
- unalone 14y ago
  Forking's always fun. When I interned at Aviary the forked content was sometimes the most interesting. A word of warning, gleaned from Aviary's eventual failure in that market: forking has a tendency to reduce somebody's feed to a bunch of images that look almost exactly the same. The difference being, lots of the forks will be shoddier and lower-quality than the original. It can make a feed far less engaging in far less time. You can fix that by attaching all forked projects together in a feed, but then you're back to square one: not enough original content hitting a user's feed.
tomwalsham 14y ago
Just as a reference point, this brought to mind an old app (in the desktop sense) from 2001 - http://www.16color.com/ http://www.16color.com/ The site is still up, and they claim 40,000 movies were created between 1999 and 2004 (timeline from the DVD : http://www.amazon.com/Best-16-Color-DVD/dp/B000BD98AO/ http://www.amazon.com/Best-16-Color-DVD/dp/B000BD98AO/) I don't think content volume is an issue if the right channel can be found, but you're right that the Instagram comparison is not the correct order of magnitude. disclaimer: I have no relation to 16color, apart from enjoying it over a decade ago, and just discovered one of my animations was actually on their DVD.

olgeni 14y ago

Cute, but the square pixels actually look like small rectangles to me. How did it get past legal? BTW, we really need an 8-bit GarageBand with sharing features.

ArekDymalski 14y ago
That was my thought too - 8bit sequencer with 16 steps and chiptune sounds.
dkurth 14y ago
I don't know if you're joking, but I would love an app like Garage Band for making 8-bit/chiptune music!
- olgeni 14y ago
  Seriously - and you should be able to choose AY-8192, SID or whatever. It could also listen to a tune and render it back as 8-bit sound :)

bsaul 14y ago

Hey, i did https://itunes.apple.com/app/world-of-pictos-by-simple-app/id473964357 https://itunes.apple.com/app/world-of-pictos-by-simple-app/i... , please contact me using the "contact" if interested...

justjimmy 14y ago

Nice idea! What are other similar apps that did this? (Assuming you did research). I see bsaul did something similar but he used geolocation as sharing platform…interesting… And why the restrictive color palette? To create the nostalgic effect of old video games?

evincarofautumn 14y ago
A limited palette is traditional, and pixel art is very traditionalist, as both an art form and a community of artists. That’s not to say there’s no innovation—plenty of—but it’s always with the same body of techniques: palette minimisation, antialiasing, dithering, hardware restrictions, and a large dose of colour theory.

dcaranda 14y ago

Awesome. I think the format (picture feed) has the potential to work across a bunch of verticals - movie posters (to get movie recommendations), art (to get gallery recommendations), food, etc. Pixel art is a great choice. The emphasis is on creation and expression - and maybe it hits a sweet spot - it requires more work than instagram (making it more legitimate as an art/craft) but less than creating the mona lisa... You should get eBoy to use it: http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/ http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/

gfalcao 14y ago

Looks nice but started too expensive. Why don't you put it free to get user acquisition and then you raise the price ?

dcaranda 14y ago
I think pixel art appeals sufficiently enough to a niche audience that it can demand the fee.

fufulabs 14y ago

Hi, we made an app called Tinygram (http://tiny.by http://tiny.by) that I think is more Instagramm-y (uggh!) than this. Its not done yet (missing a few big features) but it has a smaller canvas 10x10 and a unique way of choosing color shades and doing animation. It already has a sizeable community and sputtering of new content (pixel art is hard for most people we discovered.) It is an interesting community building experience so far. Anyhow in case you are curious on how closer it is to Insatgram, its free at http://bit.ly/tinygramming http://bit.ly/tinygramming .