Research
The value proposition
What is not unique. Several things that look new are not: Rebelle's mixing palette is a real surface you paint and mix on with brushes; Fresco, ArtRage Vitae, Infinite Painter and Procreate Pocket all paint with a finger on a phone, and contact-size pressure has prior art; Psykopaint shipped tilt relighting; and relightable sharing isn't built yet. So nothing here is claimed as unique until a side-by-side test with the competitors shows it, and the case is made as a value, not a list of features.
A value proposition says who it's for, what they get, and why this app rather than another. The brief's promise ("the painting is an object, not an image") describes the product, not the value to someone.
Three candidate audiences
The owner chooses; each points to different next work.
| Audience | The value | Why Enogu | The honest risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| People learning to paint in oil | Learn to mix and paint in oil, and it transfers to a real easel | Pigment-true mixing (eight named pigments, earths included, Kubelka–Munk, checked against real paint), a real palette, and studio practice (grounds, tracing, drying) | Rebelle is close on pigment accuracy, though desktop-only and $90–150 |
| People who love oils but can't paint daily | Oil painting without the mess, solvents, cost or space: a daily sketchbook | Thick paint that behaves like oil, on the phone that's always with you | Fresco's Live Oils is free and good |
| People looking for a calm daily practice | Slow, tactile painting as a daily calm ritual, alongside Neshi | The Kinari look, no generative features, the family of calm apps | The weakest claim as painting |
What's built, stated plainly
- Thick paint with real volume, which stays bounded when overpainting.
- Six-pigment spectral mixing, checked against real paint.
- A mixing palette: tap to pick up paint, drag to mix.
- Studio practice: Trace, toned or white ground, drying for glazing.
- Tilt light, contact-size pressure, and the brush trailing the finger. Not yet proven on the phone.
Not built: relightable sharing and export. (Burnt sienna and burnt umber were added on 2026-09-27.)
What would make a claim credible
The side-by-side test: the same six tasks in Enogu, Fresco, Rebelle, ArtRage Vitae and Infinite Painter, run by the owner and scored from screenshots.