|

Dry media strokes

Dry media such as pencils and pastels are among our most familiar drawing tools. They are convenient and versatile, and their textures can create rich effects while revealing the character of the paper or other surface beneath them.

Dry media strokes

open full size ↗

From top to bottom: pencil, charcoal, and pastel, all drawn with a single renderer using three different settings.

We simulate the paper tooth by thresholding screen-space noise against the stroke's coverage. As a result, light lines break into speckles rather than fading evenly.

The three media are distinguished by the scale of the paper tooth (in pixels), stroke width, softness, and edge roughness.

Multicolor dry media

open full size ↗

The same media, now using a color palette. The pencil changes color along the stroke, like a pencil with rainbow-colored lead. Charcoal and pastel assign a color from the palette to each cell of the paper tooth, making the flecks look like blended pigments.

Try drawing

open full size ↗

Try drawing freely with the tools on this page.