Top Tips: Paint Park

Start creating mini-masterpieces using Paint Park on your PS Vita with these handy hints.

Paint Park is a free social app for PlayStation Vita that lets you conjure up colourful sketches, fun doodles and detailed drawings using the handheld system's intuitive touchscreen controls.

Bring your images to life with these top tips from SCEE's very own Paint Park pro, Jawad Ashraf.

Find your way around

The first time you start Paint Park, select Paint Alone from the Title Screen to play by yourself and perfect your technique. You'll be presented with a blank canvas; tap the inverted triangle in the top right-hand corner of the touchscreen or press the Triangle button to bring up the main menu.

Main menu

Across the top of the touchscreen, you can return to the Title Screen, undo or redo changes, delete the current canvas, access images previously saved to your PS Vita, take a photo with the front or rear camera, challenge friends (only in Paint With Friends) or access your Paint Park gallery.

Different strokes

Along the bottom of the touchscreen, you'll find the colour palette and the different marker pens you can use. You can combine the 12 base colours in any way you like along with the four marker pen types to create hundreds of different shades.

Mixing colours

Hold down the first colour and then select as many additional colours as you like until you get your desired combination. If you want to ditch the first colour you picked, remove your finger from that one only whilst holding down the last colour selected – this can be handy when trying to mix two colours that are right next to each other on the colour palette. Whichever way you use to get the right colour combination, keep an eye on the four marker pens to view your new colour.

Start drawing

Use your finger on the PS Vita system's touchscreen to start putting your image together. If you make a mistake, don't worry – simply press the left directional button to undo up to the last 10 inputs.

Get down to the nitty-gritty

Once you've got a nice outline for your piece, start adding the finer detail by using the magnifying glass. This appears automatically on the touchscreen as you are drawing and is a great way to refine your drawing and add detail.

Keep saving

Peel the touchscreen from the bottom right-hand corner to save your drawing to the Paint Park gallery. Every time you save your drawing, a new version is added to the gallery, meaning that if you want to change your mind at any point, you can go back and start again from one of the previous versions of your image.

Throw out the trash

If you don't want to hold on to all of your drawings, tap on the Recycle Bin icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the gallery screen and you can select multiple items to dispose of.

Use your creation

Once you're done and you've saved your drawing, select it from the Paint Park gallery and tap the touchscreen to hide the display menu and icons. Press the PS Vita system's PS button and START button at the same time and the image will be saved to the Photos app on the PS Vita system's home screen.

Exit Paint Park and go to the Photos app, select your image from the gallery and tap on the (...) icon to bring up the options menu. You can then send your creation to your PlayStation Network friends via Group Messaging or set it as the start screen or home screen on your PS Vita.

Need more help?

Tap on the manual icon in Paint Park's LiveArea™ screen for more hints and tips on getting the most out of this artistic application.

Head over to PlayStation Store now to download Paint Park for free and unleash your creative side on PS Vita.