Today we announce the release of Alchemy version 008, a Beta release. Nearly two years on from the first release, the community of users has grown significantly and we believe Alchemy is reliable enough to be labelled ‘Beta’ quality. As a result we are finally opening up the website for everyone to download and try it out.

This release has a number of new modules, improvements, and bug fixes, but perhaps the most important thing is we are also opening up the development of Alchemy for everyone to create their own modules. If you know a little bit of Java or even some Javascript, Actionscript, or Processing, creating an Alchemy module is a simple process outlined in this tutorial. We want Alchemy to be software by artists for artists. How to contribute.

Finally we would like to say a special thank you to Steren Giannini and James Alliban for their code contributions to this release.

Just a quick note to say that Jérôme has put together a website and forum for French users. Check it out here: http://www.alchemyart.fr/

Thanks! We are looking forward to seeing lots of nice work!

We have posted a slight update to the 007 release. If you had problems saving PDFs with the Gradient module, please download the 007 release again and give it a try. Other minor changes are listed here.

Update (May 6, 2009) – The 007.2 release has been added, which includes more fixes for PDF/Gradient related bugs

A new version of Alchemy, Alpha 007, has been released! Over the last several months there has been a growing interest in Alchemy and we hope this new version will give our ever expanding audience some fun new stuff to play with.

Alchemy now supports pen tablets with a new module called ‘Pressure Shapes’ that allows you to draw more gestural lines. Also new is the Gradient module which applies automatic colour gradation as you draw. This release has also given the interface a much needed tidy up!

The latest version of Alchemy – Alpha 006 is now online. It has been six months since the last release, and we have been busy fixing up numerous bugs, making refinements, and adding a handful of features including:

- Pull Shapes, a new module which ‘pulls’ shapes from PDF files located in the Alchemy shapes folder and lets you draw with them. You can even load in Alchemy session files and use those shapes to draw. Feel free to share your shape files on the Alchemy forum here: http://al.chemy.org/forum/post357.html
- A new colour eye dropper has been added.
- Numerous other improvements including custom session file names, drawing in ‘transparent fullscreen’ mode, and JPEG export.

Some new videos for you all to enjoy! First up Alchemy > ZBrush: Sketching through Alchemy generated alpha masks. A cool technique for taking Alchemy forms into 3d. And a clip from a recent MassiveBlack/ConceptArt.org event in LA, Andrew Jones using Alchemy for Live Visuals.

We are conducting a small survey of Alchemy users and giving away free stickers to those who help out! To participate, or find out more information head over to the Alchemy Survey page.

Alpha 005 is now up. Having recently been involved in several kids workshops, this release includes an alternate ’simple’ interface aimed at letting kids play with Alchemy.

It also has a few handy new features such as the ability to draw over/under existing shapes on the canvas, and a new ‘Colour Switcher’ module that brings some chaos to colour selection. See the full list of changes here

Having finally got around to testing Alchemy on Linux and ironing out a few bugs, we have added a Linux release to the download page today. For more info and tips on using Alchemy on Linux, check out this forum post here. Enjoy!

The Alchemy Alpha 004 release is now online. It has several new modules including ‘Camera Colour’, which lets you use a web-cam to select colours from the ‘real world’ based on the location of the pen.

A faceless Alchemy team member

With camera image display on

Be sure to check you have a web camera correctly installed before trying this module – due to a bug in the camera library it can cause errors if no camera is found.

Also new in this release is the ability to load and draw on top of previous sessions. A full list of the changes in this release can be found on the version history page.