Don Lee’s Nomad Brushes Let You Use A Real Brush With Your iPad

John Brownlee (9:15 am PDT, Jan 14 2011)

These paintbrushes by Don Lee seem like an incredible idea. Called the Nomad Brush, each brush’s bristles are made of conductive fibers, so that it’ll work for painting on the iPad with any paint tool app.

I’m not sure I entirely see the point though. The iPad’s touch display can only register ten touch points at once, with none of the granularity that would be required to capture individual bristle strokes, not just brush strokes. Consequently, a lot of the feel and look of painting with a brush will be lost, especially since the iPad’s display doesn’t register pressure: you might as well use any rubber-tipped stylus instead for roughly the same effect.

Ultimately, it seems like whether or not the Nomad Brush is worth the dosh for you is how much more comfortable you are painting than drawing. If that sounds like you, the Nomad should be out in February.

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4 comments »

  • Gazoobee

    The point you might be missing is that the styluses we have now are like rubber nubs and deform slightly when used, but only in the way a *finger* deforms when it touches the pad.

    These brushes seem like they would deform when touching (painting) changing the shape of the stroke in the process, but in the shape of a *paintbrush* in the traditional way. This is a huge advancement for digital artists if it works the way it seems to in the video.

  • Bill Gowland

    I think its value will come in being a natural connection to the touch interface. It will take all hurdles out of the way for artists to treat the iPad like canvas.

    Now I only wish I could paint so I could use them :)

    Bill

  • Kasper

    As long as your hand cannot touch the surface and the brush isn’t pressure sensitive, this remains a fringe idea.

  • http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman

    iPad is capable of 11 multi-touch inputs.

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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