The uDraw GameTablet by THQ is a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet powered by the Nintendo Wii-mote. It connects like the Nunchuk, and the Wii-mote slips into the tablet, tucking the wrist strap and connector away into a pocket built into the tablet. The tablet measures a compact 9x7 x 1 ½” deep with a generous 4 x 6 drawing surface. The stylus is like a fat, oversized pencil with a pressure-sensitive tip and a great size for little hands. While in use, there’s an “ink well” at the top right corner for resting the stylus, and it tucks away in a pocket underneath for storage. All the buttons of the Wii-mote are accessible, but the stylus with pressure-sensitive tip and thumb button work as the A and B button as well.

The tablet comes bundled with uDraw Studio, developed by Pipeworks Software, and is drawing and coloring software. Think of it like a kid’s version of Photoshop. It has about a dozen different brushes ranging from crayon to pen to paintbrush, nib sizes, and sliders and toggles to get effects to mix and match, such as paint drop-off and opacity. There are also shapes and line tools as well as a large library of stamps. On top of that, there are post-processing effects to turn your masterpiece into sepia, black and white, or even neon.

The Experience

As I usually do for games and accessories targeted toward children, I tried them out on the kids with as little instruction as possible. I showed two little girls ages 8 and 9 how to hook up the GameTablet. They tossed for who got to try it first, and the 9-year-old won. The 8-year-old was prompted to read the instructions, but they simply took the thing and ran with it.

They were too impatient to go through the entire tutorial and checked out the menu items. After choosing a canvas and background, the 9-year-old went into the drawing interface and with the 8-year-old making only a few suggestions (amazing!). She quickly figured the stylus worked like a mouse as she drew it across the drawing surface, tapping the different icons to see what they did.

The adults watched, a programmer daddy commenting the interface seemed clumsy — yet the kids had no problems at all. The icons were intuitive, and with a little experimenting, she was off, picking the type of media, size of nib and palettes of colors. She also discovered flood-fill when she started to color and stamps, which she used to decorate the dress of the ballerina she drew. In particular, she loved the airbrush for coloring the background, especially since she could fade the paint using the pressure-sensitive brush.

The 8-year-old had a less steady hand and discovered the eraser, then proceeded to draw three different subjects, erasing the ones she didn’t like before she settled on a fire-breathing dragon in a flower garden. Go figure.

Then they discovered playback and replayed how they drew and colored their pictures with lots of giggling as they increased the speed. The next thing they found were the pictures for coloring, which ranged from abstract art to fantasy to prehistoric creatures. What a lovely way for two little girls to spend an afternoon. Best of all, we saved the guest’s artwork on her daddy’s camera SD card to bring home to print.

Reviewer Opinion

The uDraw GameTablet and uDraw Studio comes bundled together at a price of $69.99. This isn’t a professional drawing tablet but a toy for young children — one that promotes creativity and really, a taste of the graphical art possibilities of the computing age. The interface is simple and intuitive enough that kids recognize the shapes and with a little experimenting understand what they do. The instructions were tossed aside in favor of learning on the fly.

The brushes are represented well. Especially when zoomed in, the airbrush, acrylic paint brush, the pen, can actually create some loving detail. The older girl had already encountered abstract art at school and disdained the available pieces for coloring, instead making her own piece of abstract art using the multitude of stamps available.

Both girls love to draw and paint, and when they are together, they can create quite a mess and use an amazing amount of paper. uDraw GameTablet and uDraw Studio will not become a substitute for the physical fun of using real media, but in a pinch, for a half hour before dinner, my niece can paint with something she’s unlikely to get her hands on for years yet — she did like the acrylic brush and the airbrush. I’m again “Bestest Aunty” when I agreed she could keep the uDraw GameTablet and software, and I’ve three new masterpieces for my fridge, printed out in living color. Not the highest pixel count, but once again, this is children’s hardware and software.

Note: Two other pieces of software for the uDraw GameTablet were released at the same time — Pictionary and Dood’s Big Adventure.