What happens when you sit
You sit for eight to twelve seconds, depending on your artist. One frame is kept. Once the drawing is ready, it plays for about forty-four seconds. Here is what happens to your picture along the way.
On your device
Look
- The camera stays on your device. Your video is never uploaded.
- Your browser picks the sharpest, best-lit, best-framed frame.
- It skips a blink when it can.
One still, after you agree
At the studio
Draw
- Hidden data in the still, like its location, is removed.
- A first version of your portrait is made from it. You never see it, and it is thrown away afterwards.
- The studio turns it into the strokes you will watch.
One saved drawing
On your screen
Watch
- The strokes are drawn in order, in front of you.
- Your saved sheet comes from the same drawing.
What is kept
The studio does not keep your still. It is not saved in a database or as a file. The image service that makes the first version is asked not to keep it either. That is a request, not a promise the studio can make for them, and the privacy notice says the same.
The first version
The first version can get things wrong: an invented detail, a changed colour, a likeness that is a little off. The drawing repeats it as it is. Nothing is corrected while you watch.
What you watch is what you keep
One saved drawing feeds everything: the live drawing, your sheet, the download and the short film. Watching again does not make a new portrait.
Where this stops
One sitting makes one portrait, and there is no retake for a different expression. A capture that fails a technical check can be tried again, but a finished portrait is not redrawn.
The studio is built around a framed face. A profile, an odd crop or a wider scene may not draw well.
The paper has the technical account. It covers the earlier version of the drawing, and its measurements describe that version only. Read the paper