drawball.

July 14, 2006 6:31 PM

Drawball Is a massive shared surface where anyone can draw whatever they want. There is a hall of fame where you can watch some cool things take shape
posted by delmoi (29 comments total)

Ta-da!!!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 6:43 PM on July 14, 2006

Double.
posted by Gator at 6:53 PM on July 14, 2006

*sigh*. Still cool, though :P
posted by delmoi at 6:56 PM on July 14, 2006

I was tricked by their crafty "Click Disagree to draw" scheme. Bastards.
posted by disillusioned at 7:07 PM on July 14, 2006

great link, missed it the first time.

Quite mind boggling really. Not just the talent in the hall of fame, and the logistics of the data storage, but the power of the Flash plugin.
posted by derbs at 7:23 PM on July 14, 2006

bla bla bla double, but Canadians can try this...

put in your postal code at the end of the locations URL and see where it takes you.. eg http://www.drawball.com/X1Y2Z3
posted by Extopalopaketle at 7:27 PM on July 14, 2006

I don't understand it...I can't draw, I just get some sort of envelope-looking thing. Am I supposed to connect the dots before I can draw as a sort of captcha? If so, I can't get it to work, since the graph fails the "Koenigsberg bridge" test.
posted by jedicus at 7:27 PM on July 14, 2006

Yeah you connect the dots so that each edge is drawn over only once. You can actually do it.
posted by delmoi at 7:30 PM on July 14, 2006

Okay actually I was wrong. I see how it works now.
posted by jedicus at 7:38 PM on July 14, 2006

Am I supposed to connect the dots before I can draw as a sort of captcha?

Yup, it's a lead pipe cinch for anyone who was as bored as I was in 8th grade geography.

One way: Bottom Left, Upper Left, Peak, Upper Right, UL, Bottom Right, UR, BL, BR, BABA Start...

Easy peasy.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:41 PM on July 14, 2006

Curses!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:42 PM on July 14, 2006

Wow, people scribbling.
posted by fire&wings at 7:45 PM on July 14, 2006

That's a pretty mean captcha, at least for geometrically challenged people like me.
posted by MadamM at 7:50 PM on July 14, 2006

How do you get more ink? And how do you put in a vote to have certain things protected?
posted by ZachsMind at 8:17 PM on July 14, 2006

i just got in a penis fight with someone on the ball.

heh.
posted by Mach5 at 8:56 PM on July 14, 2006

You get more ink by waiting, e.g. for 24 hours.
posted by dhartung at 9:14 PM on July 14, 2006

Wow, watching the Tokyo Night Flood take shape was infuriating. He was doing such a good job, then some fuckass showed up and blasted pink shit all over the top, and it was never the same again.
posted by Clamwacker at 9:28 PM on July 14, 2006

Looking at both those Alba drawings in the hall of fame, I can't imagine spending any amount of time doing something that detailed, only to have some anonymous fucker plaster swastikas all over it. No thank you, no sir ree bob.
posted by crunchland at 9:33 PM on July 14, 2006

Crunchland some people get 'unlimited' ink, and apperantly locked down sections, but watching this guy fight off vandals was kind of annoying. He kept at it, though.
posted by delmoi at 9:50 PM on July 14, 2006

Remember that fucking Korean flag from the last time this was posted? Good times.
posted by cortex at 10:06 PM on July 14, 2006

There is something intriguing though about capturing not only the progress of the work but the vandalism and protection of said work. Noticing where certain people attack a drawing, and what they use. Their choice of color. Maybe someone covers up the breasts or ass. Maybe they deface the face. Maybe they use words or swastikas or just random lines. Interesting animation watching the progress of an artist as a vandal just flies in and then the work either gets fixed or it evolves into something else.

Imagine if we could go back and watch the Sistine Chapel painted, and then some time travellers flew in on their hoverboards with spraycans. I'd pay to see that.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:15 PM on July 14, 2006

I am not familiar with this site. So I loaded it and clicked on the only ball that looked really pretty to me... it turned out to be "Tokyo Night Flood" and I was mesmerized as I watched after reading your posts knowing that some guy was drawing this with some kind of ink loaded on his cursor? AND BAM - even though I remember reading about the pink being dumped on him - there it was ! Boy did he recover quickly and finished it out before they hit him again... so that is the object? To pick a ball, start drawing on it and finish it before someone RUINS it? WIERD. He sure made that beautiful - even worked the pink into his finished product. I saw enough to know that would piss me off to watch anymore... Much less to participate in it..
posted by Gal 220 at 11:03 PM on July 14, 2006

Someone should combine this with the Million Dollar Webpage. Contribute $5, you get 1000 pixels (or whatever) worth of "ink", guaranteed to last one week (or something like that).
posted by jiawen at 11:25 PM on July 14, 2006

God damn. Cool.
posted by anthill at 12:17 AM on July 15, 2006

It looks like only the [H]ardOCP folks have the battalions to defend their turf...
posted by anthill at 12:22 AM on July 15, 2006

This particular page was on b3ta yesterday - it took the guy 70 hours while fighting off persistent vandals who were intent on adding cartoon eyes and a penis to his carefully-crafted dragon. I like the plaintive "please let me finish"...
posted by greycap at 1:23 AM on July 15, 2006

Dude it's like Mefi, only with paint.
posted by econous at 3:21 AM on July 15, 2006

I'm not seeing any evidence in those "best" shots of any blocked out space or people with unlimited paint getting undisturbed areas. I can appreciate that the people who put up this site want to provide a public shithole for every nazi and penis fetishist to be able to scribble to their heart's content, but they should provide a personal playground for people who can seriously draw, undisturbed. Even though it IS sort of interesting to see the gross vandalization, it's also heartbreaking.
posted by crunchland at 5:36 AM on July 15, 2006

Whereever I try drawing, my paint just disappears. Is everyplace protected, or am I just very unlucky?
posted by dmd at 6:48 AM on July 15, 2006