Found Footage: Creating manga on the iPad

Despite the negative reactions levied at the doubters, I have to side with them. I don't question the artist's ability at all. But there is clearly some issues with this video.

At 2:05 you can clearly see two vertical fine lines drawn with just one downstroke of his finger. It very much appears as if he's revealing a previously drawn image skinned below the top layer. Some of the shadowing is drawn in smoothly with just one finger stroke.

Reading through the youtube comments you see similar reactions from other viewers. It's the appearance that doesn't sit right with me.

Typical skeptic, I immediately thought this was a fake. Bought the app for the iPhone and I take it all back. Brilliant artist and a nice little app.

two hands? who draws with two hands unless you are a chimp.
its not like he is using the other hand for something else!

Its a great sketch, its easy to draw a familiar character that is in your daily reperatoire-- so sketching it in one sitting shouldnt be difficult, Mastering the program takes time and patience.

Bravo and kudos for using new media.

Guys, this is the internet. You're supposed to at least google before you post something stupid.

I too think it's a fake (it's actually even more obvious on the video posted by unkowokuinasai) : on the eyeborws we can see that vertical shadow are drawn even though his movement was horizontal. Starting the app doesn't prove a thing, as a well behaved app starts where it was left off (with a pre-drawn sketch under an opaque layer that gets erased in this case).
Even if this app is clever and modulates brush thickness with finger speed it doesn't explain the transition from black and thin to grey and large when he draws the hair, or how you can draw two strands of hair in a single stroke.

I thought it was faked at first. What shows up on screen doesn't seem to jive with what he's doing. If you go to the app store page, you'll see the developer mentions an app called Harmony that he based it on. You can use it in the browser window here: http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/

Play around with it for 30 seconds and you'll see that it creates content based on where other lines are (for example, draw two lines close together and you'll see cross hatching appear in between them.)

Here is a webapp that does the same as this iPad app. Try it and see how it really works: http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/

Its amazing when people don't see talent because they compare with themselves.

How about a video where he starts the damn app so you can see that he is actually painting it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWxq7vDDNlA

Wasn't that hard to find, now was it?

To the doubters, use the app. Drawing your first few lines will be straight lines. Depending on how long you hold your finger, you will get very thin light lines or thicker dark lines. When you then go back and draw near or across existing lines, it fills in the space around the connection as if you had been drawing the sketch that way. That's why you see a lot of marks appear near his fingers, not where he is pressing them.

Also, this is clearly not his first time using the app. You have to get used to how it behaves. because sometimes it does things you don't want. You'll note in the video he does do some erasing to clean up spots he didn't want the extra sketch marks.