Oekaki
"Some manga artists will produce extra, sometimes unrelated material, which are known as omake (lit. "bonus" or "extra"). They might also publish their unfinished drawings or sketches, known as oekaki (lit. "sketches")." (see Manga)
Oekaki, in the Internet art world, has also come to mean message boards that revolve around computer art created by the local art program (often a more sophisticated version of Microsoft Paint).
The Oekaki interface is a Java applet, and is extremely powerful and versatile in that it's simple to use, yet offers enough features to create professional-looking images. The two main versions of the program are OekakiBBS and PaintBBS.
PaintBBS is a more simple applet which utilises two layers and a mask system. It has many different palettes that can be used for a variety of different effects. It has an animation feature which allows the user to watch a "movie" of him or herself drawing his or her image. This feature also enables the artist to save the image to the BBS and later repaint the image while still retaining his or her layer and palette settings.
OekakiBBS is slightly more complicated and has fewer tones (or screentones), but it enables more productive colour blending, as many layers as one could hope for, masks, and the same animation feature as in PaintBBS.
There are several other applets, but the two described are the most commonly used, especially by English users. Artists can use these applets with the computer mouse or with a tablet and stylus, as popularized by Wacom.
Oekaki is extremely popular among the anime Internet subculture, because it enables a community gathering to share fanart and offer critiques and compliments. It also serves as a tool to "flesh out" original characters (especially RolePlaying characters) and the like.
There are a remarkable number of OekakiBBSes (and
