Introducing Sketchshare for iPad

Fresh on the App Store from long-time Computer Arts collaborator Stewart Hamilton-Arrandale and Chris Wilson, Sketchshare is a multi-purpose collaborative sketching app with voice chat built in, so you can discuss, brainstorm, storyboard, edit and doodle in real-time on your iPad.

While this sounds like a great way for doodle-mad mates to kill a few hours (and it doesn't disappoint on that front), the wider possibilities for creative collaborators to share ideas - as well as make early concept presentations to clients all over the world - are particularly exciting, especially for freelancers based remotely, when email, Skype and conference calls just don't quite cut it.

"Chris and I live far apart from each other, so we would use Skype all the time to chat, and then either sketch stuff in a notebook, scan and send each other the ideas, or do a quick Photoshop mockup and send that to each other," explains Hamilton-Arrandale.

"That's not a bad way of doing things, but it's very slow," he goes on. "We talked for a good two or three years about an app like this, and finally got around to doing it. Now we use it pretty much every day, and are planning our next bits of work and apps out in it all of the time. Also we're having some great feedback from people saying it's making remote working so much easier for them and their clients."

Some illustrators are taking it one step further, and actually creating full-blown collaborative artworks using Sketchshare, such as the above example by 154 Collective, while Fabric Lenny and Benjamin Rabe have documented their sketching process between Hamburg and Holmfirth in Yorkshire.

Here's a handy video showing the app in action between three iPads:

And there's plenty more info about the app on the Sketchshare website.