Oekaki

Oekaki (お絵描き; drawing/painting) is a form of computer art that originated from the Japanese-speaking web during the late '90s and early '00s. The term oekaki typically refers to art drawn using oekaki bulletin boards and oekaki chats, and these sites were very popular with amateur artists around the world during the first half of the '00s. Their popularity waned as the decade wore on however, before fading into near-complete obscurity during the 2010s. As of 2022, there are only a few semi-active oekaki bulletin boards remaining.

The reasons for their waning popularity are many, but it was at least in part due to web users developing vastly different browsing and computing habits than were commonplace during the first half of the '00s. The final nail in the coffin was likely the obsolescence—and eventual discontinuation—of Java and Flash support in web browsers, which prevented the average user from being able to use oekaki applets. Since then, several oekaki applets that do not require Java or Flash have been created, but the format's popularity has yet to show any major signs of revival.

Some people confuse oekaki art with pixel art due to the visible aliasing that oekaki art often exhibits, but they are not the same thing. Pixel art is typically drawn meticulously pixel-by-pixel with strict color palette limitations; oekaki art, on the other hand, is usually hand drawn with a graphics tablet in a web browser, and only appears pixelated or palette-limited if that is the artist's intent, or if there are limitations within the oekaki applet being used.

Oekaki applets

Shi-Painter (Java applet; does not work on modern browsers)
Shi-chan's PaintBBS (Java applet; does not work on modern browsers)
Shi-chan's PaintChat (Java applet; does not work on modern browsers)
PaintBBS NEO (JavaScript; a remake of Shi-chan's PaintBBS)
Chicken Paint (JavaScript; HTML5 port of ChibiPaint)
Klecks (TypeScript)
tegaki.js (JavaScript; live demo)
wPaint (jQuery)

Oekaki bulletin board scripts

POTI-board (PHP; based on futaba.php; utilizes Shi-chan's PaintBBS and Shi-Painter)
POTI-board EVO EN (PHP; updated version of POTI-board with English translation; utilizes PaintBBS NEO, Shi-Painter (uses CheerpJ to make it work on modern browsers), ChickenPaint, and Klecks; live demo)
Petit Note (PHP; utilizes PaintBBS NEO, ChickenPaint, and Klecks; live demo)

Oekaki bulletin boards

English

Oekaki@Heyuri (POTI-board EVO EN)
Gurochan's /kaki/ - Oekaki (POTI-board EVO EN)
PaintBBS (POTI-board EVO EN)
4chan's /i/ - Oekaki (custom; utilizes tegaki.js)
TEv2 (custom; requires Twitter account)
Oekaki na smoczym (custom; requires registration; utilizes ChibiPaint, OekakiBBS, Shi-chan's PaintBBS, Shi-chan's PaintChat, Shi-Painter, and Shi-Painter Pro (note that none of these oekaki applets work in modern browsers))

Japanese

Oekaki Keijiban Art.net (custom; various oekaki boards; utilizes PaintBBS NEO, ChickenPaint, and Shi-Painter)
Kigaru ni Oekaki (POTI-board EVO)
Petit Note (Petit Note)
Ecchi na Oekaki Keijiban (POTI-board EVO)
Oekaki sql@Futaba (futaba.php; utilizes PaintBBS NEO and Shi-chan's PaintBBS)
Rakugaki ura@Futaba (same as above)
Rakugaki@Futaba (same as above)
Oekaki sqlip@Futaba (same as above)
Oekaki@Futaba (same as above)