Emaki
For iPhone · Summer 2026
A visual encyclopedia, painted as you go

Unroll
a world.

Ask a question — how a lighthouse keeps ships safe in a storm, why aged Gouda crunches. Emaki paints the answer as one explorable scene. Tap the detail you're curious about, and the next scene is painted from that exact spot. Your journey unrolls behind you as a picture scroll.

Coming to the App Store Your first ten scenes are free.
Emaki screenshot: a painted picture scroll explaining how a lighthouse works — a keeper trims the kerosene mantle lamp beside the Fresnel prism assembly while the beam cuts into the storm
One real journey

From question to world, in five scenes.

Every image on this page is an unretouched screenshot. This is the lighthouse journey, exactly as it played out. Drag to unroll.

Ask

Emaki home screen with the question 'how a lighthouse keeps ships safe in a storm' and painting-style bookmarks: Ukiyo-e, Ink wash, Shan shui, Minhwa, Miniature

Type your question. Pick a brush — ukiyo-e, ink wash, shan shui, minhwa — or write your own. Then Unroll World.

The world is painted

A painted scroll scene of a lighthouse interior: keeper at the kerosene mantle lamp, Fresnel prism assembly, clockwork mechanism, storm outside

One scene, labeled like a field guide: the keeper trims the mantle lamp while the Fresnel prisms throw the beam into the storm.

Tap what pulls you

The reading loupe over the Fresnel lens, with an explanation and the direction chooser: Continue, Amend, or Chat

Touch the lens. Emaki reads that exact spot, then asks how the next scene should unroll: continue, amend, or chat.

Branch, and go back

The branch map showing three connected worlds of the lighthouse journey over the faded scroll

Each answer becomes a new scene. The branch map keeps every path, so no question is a dead end.

Wander the gallery

The Emaki gallery of published worlds: a cheese affineur at work, a fish butchery station, knife sharpening, a cutaway of Brazil

Publish a world, or wander everyone else's: a Dutch affineur splitting Boerenkaas, knife work, Brazil in cutaway.

drag to unroll →
The wait is part of the art

Suminagashi, while you wait.

Between scenes there is no spinner. The outgoing image's own pixels become floating ink: a ripple drops where you touched, the picture liquefies into slow marbling currents, and when the new world arrives the ink settles into it, like paper lifted from water.

Modeled on suminagashi, the old art of ink floating on water. Rendered live as a Metal shader.

touch the water

Also in the scroll box

Write a style

The bookmark brushes are starting points. Describe any painting style in a sentence and Emaki paints with it.

Ask with a photo

Drop a photo into the composer and unroll a world from what's in it.

Ink

Painting costs Ink, counted in whole scenes — never fractions. Your first ten are free.

Yours to keep

Journeys are saved on your device. The gallery only shows what you choose to publish.

The scroll is almost ready.

Emaki opens on the App Store this summer. Ten scenes are on the house.

Get a note when it opens hello@emaki.ink