Disney Art Academy - Nintendo 3DS Standard Edition Game | Learn to Draw Disney Characters | Perfect for Kids & Disney Fans | Home & Travel Entertainment

I've played all Art Academy games for the 3DS.. That is, the original, Pokemon and now Disney. If you're torn between any of these, let me start by saying both Pokemon and Disney are worlds better than the original. The original does not have an undo button and it's so desperately needed! I have not completed Disney (honestly I'm about 1/2 through) but there are a few differences between it and Pokemon that are worth noting.I feel like the Pokemon Art Academy has a better lesson plan layout. Each lesson feeds into the next, and has a flow to it. Disney is a little different. It allows a bit too much jumping around for a beginner artist. I've been drawing since I could pick up a crayon and I've taken many art classes throughout my 27 years so I am not a beginner, but I do still learn from these games on top of having a lot of fun. In this game, once you do your beginning lesson, it opens up 5 categories with three lessons each. While this offers variety from the get go, there seems to be a sense of disconnect between them if you jump around. This isn't necessarily bad, just different. The strangest change are the Warm Up lessons. Each category is headed with a Warm Up that you must complete before it unlocks the following two characters/lessons. The Warm Up lessons are strange because instead of completing an entire lesson, you finish one. For example, in their color theory lesson, the Warm Up is Ursula from The Little Mermaid. The face is provided for you from the start, fully colored, and perfectly drawn. Your job is to color in her eye makeup and some shading. It's quick, which is nice, and does convey its intended lesson, but it still feels out of place when you want to learn more from scratch. That said, each category does include two more characters to draw following the Warm Up where you do start with a blank canvas. Each time you complete a lesson, it unlocks 1 lesson and usually 2 characters in the free draw mode.The toolbox has improved and I honestly didn't think it could from the Pokemon toolbox. I was in love with the Pokemon one (after the original AA's toolbox having been such a letdown) so to see even more added to it was pretty impressive. Disney Art Academy could be considered Photoshop Lite in terms of the tools. They continue the use of layers which is seriously fantastic especially when you compare it to the original Art Academy. There's undo/redo which is unlimited, you can undo until the canvas is blank, if you wanted to. I've seen the outliner pen, paintbrush, marker, pencil, pastels and spray paint so far. There's also a smudging tool and of course erasers. The brush can be tapered if you want, same for the eraser. You can choose your brush size by dragging along a bar which provides sizes 1-100 instead of the.. 4-5 brush sizes that were available in Pokemon AA. It also zooms in 2 or 3 clicks more than Pokemon, which if I recall correctly allowed you to zoom in 3x. This allows for some seriously nice detail in the art. Most of my art comes out looking very sharp.Overall so far I don't have any complaints aside from it lacking a lesson flow. It still succeeds as a teaching tool. I've always been very impressed by this game series. While I've complained about the original in this review, I should explain that at the time it was an excellent game, like taking an Art 101 class. It sold me on the series. I hope they continue to make more of these games, with licensed art or even an improved version of the original.