DS Homebrew Review: Phidias

There are a lot of DS homebrew applications out there, but not all of them are worth your time. They’re either downright bad, or sometimes they’re just too buggy and still in the process of refinement. Once in a while we see a great program that works well and is consistently updated, such as Phidias, the first drawing application for the Nintendo DS. It makes sense to use the features of the DS to draw, but Phidias does a darned good job at it. Since there are currently no commercial competitors offering a robust paint program on the DS, Phidias is really the only choice for aspiring artists on the go. A fairly healthy online community has formed around the program, and you can even upload your own creations to the net for all the world to see. To get an idea of what some users have been able to create, check out this gallery of images. We don’t have the same artistic talent that some people have demonstrated with the program, but that didn’t stop us from trying anyway. Read on to find out what we thought of this application, and how you can download and use it yourself.

Phidias has a variety of options and drawing tools. Once you start the program, you will be prompted to select a picture size; 64×64 for small designs, or 512×384 for bigger images, as well as other horizontal and vertical layouts of different sizes. Using the touch screen you can save or load images in .BMP format, or start a new drawing from scratch. You will also find six tools on the touch screen; let’s take a look at each before we discuss controls.

Pencil Tool – Using the pencil tool you can create graphite-like textures, unevenly toned, much like what real pencils do. Touch the pencil icon once to use it, or tap it twice to select a brush. A brush is the actual mark the pencil will make, such as standard squares or circles or more complex shapes, like stars or #’s.
Brush Tool – Just like the pencil tool, tap the brush tool once to use it or twice to select a specific brush and start drawing. The brush tool, unlike the pencil tool, is evenly toned, like a brush would work, and gives your drawings a more ‘digital’ look.
Smudge Tool - The smudge tool is useful for mixing adjacent colors or textures, to create blends or interesting patterns.
Blur Tool - You can use the blur tool to…well, blur. Blurring certain sections of your drawing can give your designs a more realistic appearance.
Eyedropper Tool – The eyedropper tool allows you to select a specific color out of your drawing, to get that particular color you need.
Paint Bucket Tool – The paint bucket tool allows you to color a big section of your drawing; simply pick a color and drop it, and everything of the same color that you touch will change to the specific color you selected.

The program does not yet contain a tremendous amount of features, but as you can see from these images, there are more than enough options available to create great illustrations.

You can scroll through your image with the D-pad, zoom in or out using the A and B buttons, change the size of your smudges, blurs, or pencil / brush marks with the X and Y buttons, undo / redo with Select, switch screens with the L button, and restore your image to its original size with Start. Everything works well, but you’ll need some time to get used to holding your stylus between your fingers as you use the system’s buttons. Left-handed people would have loved to use the R button to switch screens, but for some unknown reason you can’t.

Using the touch screen you can do some neat extra features. You can increase or decrease spacing between your marks, or change the pressure of your drawings, allowing you to create very light marks by quickly tapping the screen or deep, dark marks by holding the stylus on the screen for a longer time. Eight colors are pre-available for selection; red, blue, green, and yellow, with a darker shade of each color next to them. Black and white are your initial palette colors, but you can tap either of them, causing a detailed color palette to pop up, allowing you to choose any color you need.

Aside from taking a bit of time to get used to the controls and the somewhat slow use of big markings and smudges, Phidias offers a very intuitive method of drawing on your Nintendo DS. If you take your time you can create some great-looking design pieces, save them, and take them to your computer to show to the world.

Things we liked:

• Very intuitive
• Enough features to create great designs
• Like all homebrew, it’s free!

Things we didn’t like:

• Controls take a little while to get used to
• Big marks and brushes work a bit slow

Final Score: 8.5 / 10

If this program sounds appealing to you, but you are not sure how to run homebrew applications on your DS, don’t worry. Here are the steps to install and run Phidias using any popular homebrew card such as the R4 or M3 Simply:

First, visit the Phidias main site here and download the latest version of the program. The download requires 7-zip to be opened; if you don’t have it, you can get it here.

Next, open the document and select the file you need; if you have an R4 or M3 Simply, choose the .nds file. If you have a SuperCard, choose the file that is best suited for your specific device. R4 and M3 Simply users, remember to patch the Phidias.nds file with DLDI; learn how using our handy DS homebrew guide. Once your file is ready, take it and put it on your homebrew running device, including the Phidias folder which contains the brushes for the pencil and brush tools; once you do this you’re good to go!