Creative Painter 2006 Review

When I got my first computer, I was 17, so the coloring books age was behind already. If I think a little, I wouldn't change things, if I could. Violent games at early ages can change kids a lot, and also their personalities can be deformed by the lack of childhood's simple things, as hand drawing or playing with other kids outside, not on a network...

It's really hard to keep your kids away from computers these days, and since most of them start using a computer before learning to read, or use it as a tool for learning the alphabet, the best thing to do is give them something to develop their creativity and allow them to have fun in a really peaceful way. This takes us back to the coloring books I was talking earlier, and to be more specific, to a software called Creative Painter.

Setup

Creative Painter was released back in 2006, and I couldn't find any specific information about its current version. Anyway, I don't think that your kids will have a problem with that. The trial version available for free comes in a 14MB setup package and has some functional limitations, but I think there is plenty to be done with it, even this way.












As you can see in the screenshots above, installing this program is just as easy as it is with most usual Windows programs, and since I am sure you're going to do this part, and not your kids, I don't think someone will run into any kind of problems while installing Creative Painter.

Interface

The first thing I really enjoyed was the intro movie that plays before the program starts, because it reminds me of some TV shows for kids I used to watch almost 20 years ago. Other than that, the interface of this program is done so even those that can't read yet should be able to use it. I don't say this program looks perfect, but it's very good, in my opinion (I'll tell you what I don't like in the last part of this article). After all, it's not me who should like it, but those aged between 2 and 15 years, as specified on the official website, and I am sure they won't have many problems with Creative Painter's interface.

Features

Creative Painter allows your kids to create paintings in three ways. First, they can grab one of the available sketches and fill them with colors, just like using a coloring books, but they can also add different objects. Second, they can simply use the built in objects and backgrounds to create nice scenes. At last, there's also possible to create a new work from scratch.

For those that already know the alphabet, a text tool is available, together with the usual painter's tools - paintbrush, pencil, marker pen, crayon pen, or eraser. Once you select a tool, you can choose various effects for it.











The default settings of the program will start playing some nice music each time you start using it, but the drawback of this feature is that when using the eraser for longer periods, the sound made by the tool becomes really annoying.The cartoon pictures included are excellent, and I must confess it was really fun to play with those built in background pictures and cartoon characters.

At last, to make this experience as close to the real thing for your kids, you can also get a graphics tablet for them, because Creative Painter allows them to work with such devices even without a hardware driver.

The Good

Creative Painter is an excellent tool for kids, and even adults can spend some quality time with this program, while guiding their children's first steps into the computer graphics realm.

The Bad

The button used to close this application is not intuitive at all (an icon similar to the Power indicator on TVs and other electronics would be much better), and I don't like to bump into features not available in the trial version, because if a kid that can't read gets to face such errors, there are some serious chances to ruin his day. Also, it would be a really good thing to be able to run this program in a window. On my 1280X1024 resolution, the program doesn't look so good, especially since I can't resize it.

Conclusion

I am not one of those that would drop their kids in front of the computer, fire up Counter Strike, tell them "play now, daddy is going to a meeting", and go away without thinking about the possible consequences. Anyway, let's leave this problem aside, because we're talking about Creative Painter here. For 29.95$, this is one of the best gifts for your kids, and even if you are not going to purchase the program, the trial version can provide some quality time spent in front of the computer to children and, why not, adults.

Developer: Moko Systems, Inc.
Price: 29.95$
Trial Link: Download