Oekaki
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Oekaki is Japanese for "scribble" or "doodle". On the Internet, an Oekaki is a message board system that revolves around computer art created by a local art program. Oekaki artists often post their art to other websites, such as personal pages or free gallery websites, in addition to the original board.
The Oekaki interface is a Java applet. It is simple to use, yet offers enough features to create professional-looking images. The two most popular programs are OekakiBBS and PaintBBS. There are several other applets, but the two described below are the most commonly used on English boards. Artists can use these applets with the computer mouse or with a graphics tablet and stylus, as popularized by Wacom.
If the BBS and the program applet are both equipped for it, the artist can choose to use an animation feature which allows the BBS users to watch a "movie" of the artist drawing his or her image. Some Oekaki boards also have a Continue feature, which allows the artist to save the image to the board and continue work on it later. The animation feature is required to retain the image's layer and palette data when Continuing.
Oekaki is extremely popular among the anime Internet subculture, because it enables a community gathering to share fanart and offer critiques and compliments. It also serves as a tool to "flesh out" original characters, especially roleplaying characters.
There are a remarkable number of Oekaki boards, OekakiCentral (http://www.oekakicentral.com) being one of the largest. Artists can create their own Oekaki board at sites such as OekakiBBS.com (http://www.oekakibbs.com), though that site is often hard to use for non-Japanese-speakers because much of it is in Japanese or badly translated English.
Oekaki Programs
PaintBBS, also known as Shi-Oekaki, is a simple applet created by Shi-chan, which utilises two layers and a mask system. It has many different palettes that can be used for a variety of different effects. As of version 2.04, the program detects whether the user's computer is set to Japanese or English and displays the text on the tool button accordingly. The current version (as of March 26, 2005) is v2.22_8, but most English Oekaki boards still use v2.04.
OekakiBBS is slightly more complicated and has smaller palettes and fewer screentones, but it includes more productive color blending, as many layers as the artist wants, masks, and the same animation feature as in PaintBBS.
Shi-Painter and Shi-Painter Pro, also made by Shi-Chan, are becoming more popular, but they have yet to become common on English Oekaki boards.
There are other oekaki programs, but they are far less common.
External links
- OekakiBBS.com (http://www.oekakibbs.com) (Japanese)
- Shi-Dow: Homepage of PaintBBS/Shi-Oekaki Creator (http://shichan.jp/) (Japanese)
- OekakiCentral (http://www.oekakicentral.com)
- Fearsome Oekaki (http://www.fearsome-oekaki.com)
- TokiDoki Oekaki (http://www.tokidokijournal.com/oekaki)