Mischief 2.1
Not just an infinite canvas – Mischief has become a brilliant brainstorming tool
Price £17 (or free, without Pins) Company The Foundry Web www.madewithmischief.com ntil now, Mischief’s main selling point was its infinite zoom canvas. It’s a canvas with no predetermined size or border you can zoom in or out of to your heart’s content, thanks to its vector-based drawing engine.
It works very well. Mischief feels more like natural/raster drawing than using vectors. But you can’t help but feel it’s a bit gimmicky. Mischief was never going to compete with apps like Photoshop or Painter. Fortunately, Mischief doesn’t have to. It’s reinventing itself as an essential tool for brainstorming and ideation.
The big addition to Mischief 2.1 is Pins. Pins adds a new way of taking advantage of the infinite canvas. You can add a Pin to any point on your canvas, enabling you to quickly navigate back to it later. You can manage and reorder up to 99 Pins, so you’re free to continue drawing or writing ideas without worrying about organising your thoughts.
Mischief 2.1 features a streamlined interface with six basic brushes that include mild customisation options, but no textures. Mischief’s appeal is getting started immediately and not getting bogged down with options.
UOctober 2015
You start on a transparent layer, so you’re ready to get sketching straight away. Mischief supports multiple layer options and opacity. Its ability to infinitely zoom, and line smoothing options, make it a good choice for inking artworks. But It lacks lasso tools, so painting with selections isn’t possible here. The best way to use Mischief is at the start of your workflow. Sketch ideas out, ink them and then export your visible canvas (with your choice of pixel dimensions/ document size/resolution) as JPEG, PNG or PSD into Photoshop to paint.
Mischief 2.1 is a superb choice for all creatives. It gets you generating ideas quickly and efficiently and has them looking great even before taking them into Photoshop.