Artists will soon be able to add Colors Live to their shelf of physical Switch titles, as it's been confirmed to arrive later this year.

Collecting Smiles Announces Colors Live Release Date

The release date for a physical copy of digital sketchbook app Colors Live for the Nintendo Switch has been set! You'll be able grab one from retailers like Amazon, BestBuy, Target, and Walmart on September 14 for $49.99.

What's far more exciting than its beautiful casing is the Colors SonarPen. You can plug it into your Switch's headphone jack, allowing you to draw with pressure sensitivity.

We will include a spare nib in every Colors SonarPen box, that is very easy to replace, so even the most diligent Colors Live artists can enjoy Colors Live for a long time.

It's incredible value, considering that this bundle is considerably cheaper than most painting software available for portable devices. Colors Live just might be the dark horse in the race of the best programs to use on-the-go.

Related: The Best Procreate Alternatives for Android

Colors Live will also be released on the eShop on the same day. Though pre-launch digital download codes have been available on the app's online store for quite some time now, so that's definitely the less exciting half of the announcement.

What Is Colors Live?

Created by Swedish developer Collecting Smiles, Colors Live is the third installment of in a product line called Colors!, a series of digital painting applications for handheld consoles and mobile devices.

With Colors Live, not only can you paint on-the-go, but there's also a creative game mode called Colors Quest, where paint a little every day to progress and level up.

Collecting Smiles founder Jens Andersson launched a Kickstarter to fund the development of Colors Live on May 13, 2020. At least 150,000 kr (around $18,000) was needed make the concept a reality.

By the time the funding period ended 30 days later on June 12, the campaign had received over 2,380,000 kr (around $285,000) from 4,254 backers. Needless to say, not only was the project funded, but it reached all of its stretch goals, too.

Related: What Is Crowdfunding and Can You Trust a Kickstarter Campaign?

The original Colors! was released in 2007 as homebrew app for the Nintendo DS. Later, it would be legitimately distributed on PlayStation Vita, iOS, and Android. Its successor, Colors! 3D, came out in 2012 as an officially licensed app for the Nintendo 3DS.

And boy, was Colors! 3D both incredibly popular and critically acclaimed. By 2o15, the online gallery had over 4 million artworks submitted by its users. IGNDestructoid, and Nintendo Life posted their own respective reviews, all giving the app a rating of 9/10.

Paint On-the-Go With Colors Live

Seeing how many artists loved Colors! 3D, it would have been a huge missed opportunity for Collecting Smiles to not follow it up on the console that pushed Nintendo's total handheld sales to over 500 million.

Colors Live is adding functionality to the Switch that nobody really expected. This might make purchase decisions for people interested in both gaming and art so much easier: should I get a graphics tablet, or a Switch? Well, apparently the latter can sort of function as both...