{"id":15344,"date":"2016-08-19T00:01:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T00:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15344"},"modified":"2016-08-10T16:40:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T16:40:50","slug":"disney-art-academy-3ds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/19\/disney-art-academy-3ds\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney Art Academy (3DS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DISNEY_BOX\"<\/a>For nearly a century, Disney has been synonymous with artistic animation and cartoons, and now they\u2019ve teamed up with Nintendo for a new Art Academy game.\u00a0 Nintendo has been teaching art lessons with their Art Academy franchise on multiple consoles, spanning the DS, 3DS, and even the Wii U<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 So it only seems natural for them to feature art lessons with Disney characters on the 3DS.\u00a0 I\u2019ve wished that this series would get more recognition, and maybe now with the familiar Disney license, it might just do that.<\/span><\/p>\n

After playing Disney Art Academy, it\u2019s clear that this game was made with kids in mind.\u00a0 Even more so than Pok\u00e9mon Art Academy<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 The art tools you\u2019ll be using to draw and color on the touch screen are more familiar to younger players, like pencils, markers, paintbrushes, and pastels.\u00a0 In Free Paint Mode, where you are allowed to draw an assortment of Disney and PIXAR characters without a lesson, you can even use a magical wand to draw patterns like sparkles, bubbles, leaves, and more.\u00a0 It may not be as realistic, but it is fun!<\/span><\/p>\n

The lessons also start out a bit more basic and easier, which is perfect for kids.\u00a0 In fact, most of what you do in the first half of the game is color and trace existing pictures, and in Free Paint Mode you always have an option of drawing over a pre-existing overlay.\u00a0 Some may criticize this, saying it\u2019s nothing more than an over-glorified coloring book.\u00a0 But a long time ago, I once took a cartooning class from a former Disney animator (more on that later), and he said that tracing was a good way to learn to draw.\u00a0 And coloring can be very therapeutic, even for adults (which is why adult coloring books are so popular now).\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Each lesson in the game features a Disney or PIXAR character along with a basic art concept.\u00a0 You\u2019ll learn how to draw facial expressions with Sadness from Inside Out and Olaf from Frozen.\u00a0 Discover how to shade characters and why shape and volume is important by drawing Winnie the Pooh characters.\u00a0 Learn about the importance of symmetry and profiles by drawing Disney Princesses.\u00a0 Later in the more advanced classes, you\u2019ll even learn about color theory, and how to draw animals and people, as well as creating 2-D and 3-D characters. <\/span><\/p>\n

Really the only thing I can think of that this game could\u2019ve improved upon was to make better use of the license.\u00a0 For instance, instead of the generic background music they play as you draw, they could\u2019ve used music from various Disney films.\u00a0 But other than that, this is another fine game in the Art Academy lineup.\u00a0 While this particular game in the Art Academy series is geared toward kids, I think adults who are interested in the art of Disney will enjoy this, too.\u00a0 It\u2019s sad that Disney Interactive has closed their doors (so no more Disney Infinity), but maybe it\u2019ll give other companies like Nintendo an opportunity to create more great licensed Disney games like this one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"DISNEY_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Even though Disney Art Academy is geared toward kids, reading skill is still a must as everything is text-based.\u00a0 This game is certainly educational, and kids will love drawing familiar characters.\u00a0 The game also boosts confidence, and I can imagine kids taking these lessons thinking, \u201cI can do this! \u00a0I CAN draw!\u201d Disney Art Academy is rated E for Everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Usually when I review these Art Academy games, I dedicate the review to one person: my grandmother.\u00a0 But this time I\u2019m dedicating this review to two people.\u00a0 One is my grandmother, of course.\u00a0 When she was alive, she used to love to draw and paint.\u00a0 She won many local awards, and even painted the mural at her church.\u00a0 Later, she taught art lessons to kids around town, and even gave free lessons to us grandkids!\u00a0 Any artistic ability I have, I\u2019m sure I got from her.\u00a0 I wish I could\u2019ve shown her one of these Art Academy games before she passed away.\u00a0 When I play these games, I\u2019ll always think of her.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another person I\u2019d like to dedicate this review to is a former Disney animator I took a class from once as a kid.\u00a0 When I was young, I thought it would be cool to draw and make cartoons at Disney.\u00a0 As unrealistic and lofty as that goal was, my parents still supported me on it, and my mom even enrolled me in a cartooning class one summer.\u00a0 It was held at a community college, and even though I was way too young to take the class, the teacher still let me attend.\u00a0 His name was William \u201cTex\u201d Henson, and he used to work at Disney a long time ago.\u00a0 At Disney he helped create Chip N Dale, which is cool because they are my favorite Disney characters.\u00a0 I was glad to see that there are even lessons and Free Paint sessions in Disney Art Academy that feature the chipmunk duo.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

After working at Disney, Tex went on to work at Fleicher Studios, or Famous Studios as it was later called.\u00a0 He wanted to do Popeye cartoons, but since he worked at Disney and was typecast as a \u2018cute\u2019 animator, they made him do Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons instead.\u00a0 After that he worked at Jay Ward Studios doing the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon.\u00a0 He said that was his favorite place to work.\u00a0 Then he did animation for TV commercials like the early Trix Rabbit ads.\u00a0 After that he moved back to Texas to teach.<\/span><\/p>\n

I really didn\u2019t learn a whole lot of cartooning skills from his class I took, as he mostly rattled on about the good ol\u2019 days (he was pretty old).\u00a0 But there was one thing he always said before every class that I still remember today.\u00a0 He always said, \u201cBack in the day, we were storytellers first and animators second.\u201d\u00a0 Even though I never became a Disney animator, I\u2019m still kind of a storyteller as I write lots of game reviews and other articles.\u00a0 I wish I could\u2019ve kept up with him more than I did, as he has passed away also.\u00a0 The lesson here is to learn as much as you can from older generations, because you\u2019ll miss them when they\u2019re gone!\u00a0 I hope he and my grandmother can watch me play the Art Academy games while they\u2019re up in Heaven!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For nearly a century, Disney has been synonymous with artistic animation and cartoons, and now they\u2019ve teamed up with Nintendo for a new Art Academy game.\u00a0 Nintendo has been teaching art lessons with their Art Academy franchise on multiple consoles, spanning the DS, 3DS, and even the Wii U.\u00a0 So it only seems natural for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","category-movie-reviews","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15346,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15344\/revisions\/15346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}