We’ve made a new light painting app based on the technique used in the first Making Future Magic film. It’s available from today on iTunes.

Penki means “paint” in Japanese and it’s also the name we’ve given this little fellow, who guides you through the app.

Penki allows you to paint 3D messages and images that are revealed in long exposure photographs, using an iPhone (or an iPad once Apple’s released version 4.2 of iOS), a camera, and a darkish environment. There’s a more detailed explanation here on the Penki site and in the app itself.

It’s been a super interesting process, trying to turn the inevitably technical act of light painting into what we hope is a fun toy that anyone can use. We’ve developed it with the brilliant team at BERG as the latest in a number of sub-projects that have sprouted from the original film.

Here’s some we painted earlier in the Penki Flickr group.  We’d love to see yours.

Thanks to Campbell Orme, Nick Ludlam and Matt Jones at BERG; and Camille Bozzini, Riccardo Bartoli, Chris Heathcote, Anders Hojmose, Lika Ince and Doug Lyon at the agency.