Beyond Paper: 7 Surfaces You Can Draw On With AR (Clothes, Sneakers, Walls, Skin)
AR drawing started as a way to transfer sketches onto walls — but the same trick works on t-shirts, sneakers, clay reliefs and even skin. Here's how artists use augmented reality drawing far beyond paper.
A quick bit of history
Back in 2012, our founder Andrey (Adno) Drobitko and the team came up with the concept that later became Sketchar: use augmented reality to project a sketch onto a real surface and simply trace it. The original goal was murals — transferring small sketches onto big walls without grids, projectors or scaling math.
It took about five minutes to realize the idea was much bigger than walls. Anywhere you can point a phone camera, you can place a reference layer. And that opens up surfaces where a pencil sketch was never an option in the first place.
1. Custom clothing: t-shirts, denim, tote bags
Fabric is unforgiving. You can't sketch lightly on a white tee and erase it — pencil ghosts stay, and fabric markers bleed. With an AR drawing app, the guideline lives on the screen, not on the shirt, so every stroke you actually make is a final stroke.
That makes AR ideal for custom denim jackets, hoodies, and hand-painted tees: you draw clean the first time.
Video by @duenas_art
2. Sneaker customization
Sneakers are the hardest surface in the room — curved toe boxes, panels, seams. That's exactly why Sketchar has a Curved surface mode, which lets you wrap a design over a non-flat object and keep the proportions readable while you trace.
If you want to practice before touching a real pair, the mobile app includes sneaker customization art challenges — guided tasks that teach placement, line weight and composition on footwear.
Video by @duenas_art
3. Bas-reliefs and sculpted volume
AR isn't only for lines. When you're building a bas-relief in clay or plaster, the overlay shows you the intended silhouette and shading while you add material — you can literally see the target form and grow volume toward it, layer by layer.
Artwork by @barelef_spb
4. Glass and storefront windows
Storefront windows are the one surface where every traditional method fails. A projector needs something to catch the light — glass gives it nothing. Grid marks won't hold. Transfer paper can't stick to a vertical pane you're painting from the outside.
AR is the only reference that works here: the sketch sits on the glass in your view, visible only to you, while the surface stays completely clear. Window painters have been waiting for this one.
5. Tattoos: drawing straight onto skin
Skin is the ultimate "no undo" surface. Together with artist Herman IX, we made a short film about the creation of the first tattoo designed with AR directly on the body — no stencil, the design placed and adjusted live on the client, then tattooed.
For tattoo artists, that means testing placement, size and flow on the actual anatomy instead of guessing from a flat print.
6. Surfboards, cars, and any curved shape.
Surfboards, car hoods, motorcycle helmets, cylindrical columns — anything without a flat plane to work from. Sketchar's Curved Surface Mode bends the sketch to match the geometry, keeping proportions intact where a grid or projector would warp them. Custom paint jobs, board art, helmet designs: same workflow, no compromise.
Artist @duenas_art
7. Murals — where it all began
And of course, murals. From a small canvas to a five-meter wall, AR scaling keeps the drawing proportional. If you want to go bigger, Sketchar also brings VR mural painting to Meta Quest, so you can rehearse a large-format piece before renting the scaffolding.
Try it on something that isn't paper
Pick one object today — a tote bag, an old pair of sneakers, a blank wall — open the camera, place your design and trace. Paper was never the limit.
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