Paint

Paint is the third tool on the Color tab. It opens a full-screen pixel canvas on the selected faces.

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Paint Pixel art on the selected faces, or the whole fig.

Tap faces to select them, or sweep them with the Select bar ‘s Brush. With nothing selected, Paint opens on every visible face.

The header

The title reads Paint · N faces, with two dropdown chips beside it:

• Standard ▾ sets the pixel size: Chunky (4 pixels per grid block), Standard (8), Fine (16), or Ultra fine (64). Each face sizes its own grid from its real size, up to 256 pixels across. Changing the setting redraws the whole fig. Ultra fine also keeps finer patterns and pictures as they are when the fig opens. See Photos become pixel art .
• Paint ▾ selects the layer you paint on. It reads Effects ▾ while an effect is armed. See Layers .

Undo, Redo, and Done are in the header. Undo reverses a whole stroke, even one that crossed many faces. Done returns to the fig.

Seams, Photo, and Text are under the title row. The selected faces unroll into one flat sheet, so a stroke crosses an edge without a seam. Seams unrolls the sheet a different way when a seam is in the way; it appears only with more than one face. Press it as often as you like: each face is re-fitted from the paint you last made on it, never from a copy of a copy, so a full round brings every face back exactly, and Done after only looking keeps the paint as you made it. Photo opens the photo table. Text opens it on Type words, so typed words are placed on the table the same as a picture. See Photos .

The canvas

One finger paints. Two fingers zoom, slide, and rotate the canvas. Tap ⌖ Recenter to reset the view. Zoomed in, a map of the whole sheet replaces the 3D preview in its corner; drag the map to move around.

Hold still on a spot to take its color. This works with Pen, Eraser, and Dither, and not while Above finger is on.

The paint toolbar

The tools are on one row: Pen, Fill, Eraser, Shapes, Dither, Lasso, the Color swatch, and Effects, with a Pattern pill beside the row. Tap a tool to select it. Pen and Eraser show their settings on that first tap, and a second tap folds them away. For the other tools, tap the selected tool again to open its settings. While a settings popout is open, the preview card is hidden.

Pen

Fill

Eraser

Shapes

Dither

◎Lasso

Color

Effects

Pattern

Size has three steps (1, 2, or 3) for Pen, Eraser, and Dither. Size 1 is single pixels. The same three tools share a Smoothing row: Off, Light, Normal, or Heavy sets how much the line is steadied.

• Pen: draws. Its settings hold Size; Strength (Full covers, Soft mixes half the color in per stroke, Faint a quarter); Smoothing; Mode (Draw, Smudge, Spray, Jumble, or Blur; see Smudge brush ); Above finger (On draws the stroke a short way above the fingertip, Off right under it); and Mirror (On draws the stroke on both halves of the face).
• Fill: fills an area with one tap. Its settings select Shape (the connected patch of one color under your tap) or Whole face. A color pour stops at the face you tapped and stays inside that face’s outline. With an effect armed, the pour continues across an edge where the same color continues.
• Eraser: its settings hold Size; Smoothing; Strength (Full wipes, Soft fades the ink with each pass); Erase to (Color erases back to the face’s fill color, See-through cuts holes in the fig); and Mirror.
• Shapes: one slot for Line, Box, Circle, and Fade. Its settings select the Shape, the Size, and whether Box + Circle are Outline or Filled. The shape shows as a preview with handles; tap outside it to set it.
• Dither: pattern brushes in the current color. Its settings hold an Under row, four rows of patterns (Classic, a ramp from sparse to dense; Lines; Shapes; Bricks), then Size and Smoothing. Under sets what the gaps do: Keep draws ink only, Paper fills the gaps with the paper color.
• Lasso: draws a loop around pixels so you can move them. See below.
• Color: opens the palette card. See below.
• Effects: opens Light, Water, Shiny, Glass, Paper, Cardboard, and Metal (Light and Glass in Flat and Pixel). Tap one and every tool marks that effect instead of applying color; the button shows its name and the swatch reads Color off. Tap it again to return to paint. See Effects .
• Pattern: puts a pattern on the photo table. Slide it into place and tap a face to stamp it. See Patterns .

The lasso

Draw a loop and the pixels inside are highlighted. Drag them anywhere on the sheet, across faces too, and tap outside the loop to place them. They are placed over the paint beneath: a see-through hole shows what was there and a soft edge blends. A copy keeps every pixel exact.

Tap Lasso again for its popout:

• Lift: Move lifts the pixels and leaves an empty spot, Copy leaves the originals in place. Pressing either lifts the selection.
• Clear to: what an empty spot becomes, Color (the face’s fill color) or See-through (a hole). It is the same setting as the Eraser’s Erase to.
• Selection: two Flip buttons (sideways, then up and down), Turn (a quarter turn), Clear (empty the loop), and Let go.

Colors and the blend ramp

The Color swatch opens the palette card:

• Grab a color from the drawing: the next tap on the canvas takes that color, and the previous tool returns.
• Recent: your last colors.
• The blend ramp: tap the From slot or the To slot to set it to the current color, and five in-between colors appear.
• Colors: the 28 swatches of the selected palette, with a chip for each palette above them. See Palettes .

The first dot under Colors is the See-through ink, a checker. Select it and every tool cuts a hole instead of applying color, and Fill pours one. Select any swatch to paint again.

Selecting a tool on the toolbar closes an open photo.