People find amazing new uses for Google’s Tilt Brush seemingly by the week, but this video featuring autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire is particularly impressive.
Wiltshire possesses a photographic memory, which he uses to accurately draw landscapes and create other artwork after only a short time looking at the item in question. Recently, Nissan commissioned the artist to recreate its Micra car as a piece of art. The twist? Wiltshire had to do it inside of Tilt Brush, a tool he’d never used before as part of a campaign named ‘Drawn At First Sight’. You can see the results in the video below.
As you can see, Wiltshire is able to easily reproduce the shape of the car after looking at it for a minute. But he goes way beyond that, bringing the vehicle to virtual life with impressive detail. By the time he’s done, it looks exactly like the real thing right down to the headlamps.
It’s an advert for the car itself, of course, but it’s still a great showcase of how versatile a tool Tilt Brush can be. The app is currently only available on the HTC Vive, where you use the kit’s two position-tracked controllers to draw in a 3D space. Over the past year Google has been constantly updating the app to bring new features like audio-reactive brushes and more. If you’re thinking about becoming a VR artist yourself, you should definitely check out some starter tips we have from Danny Bittman, also covering apps like Oculus’ Medium.
Tilt Brush recently showed up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, too. There the host and his guests played a few rounds of VR pictionary, which was no doubt replicated in homes over the holiday season. Going into next year, we’re hoping to see the platform expand with new features and, hopefully, support for other platforms.
