Digital artists will no doubt be excited to hear that the online art community deviantART has just released Muro, a free, web-based drawing tool. And as an added bonus, Muro is built with HTML5 (read, 'no flash') which means you can use your iPad as a drawing tablet.
Muro is surprisingly powerful for a web-app, with full-blown layer capabilities as well as multiple brushes. In addition, there is a 'basic/pro' toggle switch which allows you to close some features and make the canvas a little bit wider. The app is compatible with Wacom drawing tablets and works with the pressure sensitivity plugin.
"DeviantART Muro is pure fun for anyone," says Angelo Sotira, the company's cofounder. "But it's also a highly sophisticated application that will meet and exceed the needs of professionals in the arts. DeviantART Muro offers the best brushes for pressure sensitivity on the web, and because of its design, we can continually expand the tool's features and functions in response to user comments or to new devices, almost on the fly."
This stated intention to continually improve the drawing application based on user feedback is a great advantage for Muro moving into the future given that deviantART boasts over 14 million members.
While there are a number of web-based image editors and drawing applications online already (see Pixlr and Aviary), most of them are Flash-based. Besides Muro, Mugtug's Sketchpad application is another notable HTML5 alternative on the web, as well as Darkroom, Mugtug's online image editor.
And just a few hours ago Adobe announced that a free Photoshop Express app is now available for the iPad and iPhone. While it's not a dedicated drawing app, it might be a good solution to users who have grown comfortable with Adobe products.
But as far as online drawing applications go, Muro already ranks among the best available on the net.
