Paint My Wings Review

Paint My Wings is a lovely new app from Toca Boca, one of my favorite app developers. Paint My Wings is a universal art application, allowing the player to paint the wings of two friendly and encouraging butterflies, learning colors and fruits along the way.

Brilliant in its simplicity, I love how the mirrored image from one side of the butterfly is copied onto the other side at the same time, creating beautiful symmetry and turning the most basic scribbling into wondrous butterfly patterns. Two butterflies are included, a male and female, who both giggle if you tickle them and give lovely compliments when the player takes a photo of their art, something that made my son smile each time. Sharing one’s project is also possible via social networking as well.

It is added fun to scroll though a selection of fruits left of the screen, squash these fruits to chance the color one paints with. It is also nice that the butterfly names the color in use, nice details adding to the educational value of this creative and cute application.

I like the ease of use this app has to offer. My family is a huge fan of the other Toca Boca apps, and this app is no different. Although geared towards two and up, I think this app, with some help from an adult, could easily be used by the youngest family members as a simple touch or swipe can create a pattern effect. Parents also have the choice of discussing the fruits used in the color choices, a nice way to talk about colors and produce.

Paint My Wings is a great choice for any child who loves to be creative or is interested in butterflies. This reminds me of a favorite art project of ours where one folds butterfly-shaped paper in half, adding dollops of paint and then folding and rubbing until both sides are covered to make symmetrical Rorschach-type patterns. This app, however, can be used anywhere with no mess or cleanup. My son loves to paint wings in the car while traveling and in bed before sleep - places paints and paper would never be allowed.

It may be interesting in the future to add different-size paint brushes as well as an “undo” button for mistakes. My son has never complained about the need to erase accidents here the way he has with other painting apps, but I have upon occasion would like to make small changes on my wings, and it would be nice if there was an option to do so. I also think it would be cool if multiple fingers could paint at the same time as my son and I work on these wings together. Taking turns is fun, but it would be quite nice if we could work in unison, each painting a side of a wing, watching each other's patterns show up on our side as well, especially on the iPad.

I have also noticed that that sometimes the butterfly being painted does not name each color in use, and there can be a lag time for a color's name to be spoken as my son quickly changing colors, sometimes leading to the previous color used to be announces which is a little confusing. This is a minor note in a really good we all enjoy. I hope this detail can be fixed in a future update.

Toca Boca is a developer that has made some really inventive apps that entire families will love. I can’t want to see what they come up with next. I am sure I will be amazed and surprised, as their apps are wonderfully varied yet each highly creative and fun for those who play. I will be following Toca Boca very carefully as I am one of their biggest fans.