The team behind Retro, a photo-sharing app for close friends and family, is exploring creative uses for generative AI. To test the latest AI technologies, they built a new app called Splat. This app transforms any photo into a printable coloring book page for children.
Parents know that kids love to color. While the web offers a vast number of coloring pages for home printing, many sites are cluttered with ads and difficult to navigate. Other times, the pages require a small fee, which some parents hesitate to pay given the temporary nature of children’s artwork.
This inspired Retro’s team to develop an app for printing coloring book pages at home. You can use your own photos or choose from Splat’s provided kid-friendly categories. These categories include animals, space, flowers, fairy tales, robots, cars, and more.
To use Splat, you take a new picture or select one from your camera roll. You then choose a style for your coloring page, such as anime, 3D movie, manga, cartoon, or comic. The app uses AI to transform your picture into a page that can be colored on-screen or printed.
The app avoids a tedious sign-up process. Instead, it guides you through customization options on first use. You select a preferred app icon and check off categories your child enjoys. You can also choose whether kids color a printable page or on-screen, which is a handy option for moments when children are bored but you want to avoid screen-based entertainment.
You can try one AI-generated project for free to get a feel for the app. Continued use requires a subscription, costing either $4.99 per week for 25 pages or $49.99 per year for 500 pages. To prevent small children from accessing purchases or settings, a pop-up requiring a parent’s birth year blocks these areas.
In brief tests, the app worked as promised. The generation time was short, allowing a quick journey from idea to printed art ready for coloring, cutting, or other crafts.
Splat is one of several experiments using generative AI to inspire children’s creativity in new ways. Another app, Stickerbox, offers printed AI-generated stickers for coloring. Casio also launched a fluffy robotic pet called Moflin that uses AI to develop its personality over time.
Splat is available on iOS and Android.