Pencil! is a magical approach to teaching how to draw, and it may have sold me on a VR headset
This project recieved a coveted SideQuesting TEAM CHOICE AWARD at PAX East 2025!
When J.J. ran over to me on the show floor at PAX East to show me something, I could see that he was really excited. “You have to see this. I immediately thought about you.” It’s rare to see J.J. in such a high energy state, so I had to know what got him going.
That “this” is Pencil!, a new (in early access) education tool that uses Meta’s Quest to teach drawing. It utilizes the headset, the front facing cameras, a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, and it’s kind of amazing. Kind of REALLY amazing. It’s magic, really.
Once donning the headset, users can select any drawing lesson or subject then look down at the table in front of them, and though the mixed reality capabilities of the headset can see an image projected onto the piece of paper. It can be as simple as a line drawing of the group’s gnome logo (the first lesson) or as complex as a 3D model where light and shadow can be adjusted. The projected lines and images can be adjusted in color and opacity depending on how much we want to see of the underlay and of our sketched lines. It all feels really natural. The only drawback is that I like to rotate my canvas when I sketch, and the team doesn’t have a concrete way of doing that just yet (they’ve experimented, but nothing has been easy yet).
At some point during my sketch session I realized that I didn’t want to stop; I wanted to sketch something else and keep going. The app comes with lessons built in, but more can be downloaded and our own images can be loaded into it as well. We can use an iPad or a Wacom for learning some of the techniques, but the tactile feel of a pencil on paper isn’t there, and both of those are much more expensive.
I own a PSVR at home, and have circled around a Quest for some time while never jumping in. But now with Lead Head’s Pencil! I feel like I have a magical app to look forward to that will undoubtedly and happily usher me into the VR space.
SideQuesting had a chance to go hands-on with the project at PAX East. This video first appeared on The SideQuest LIVE for May 9, 2025.
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