We present PaintBranch, a novel VR prototype for asynchronous collaborative art creation that incorporates version control to encourage ideation and minimise creative conflicts during the collaborative process. Our first user study (N = 8) allowed us to iterate over PaintBranch’s branching UI. Our second user study involved four pairs of participants collaborating asynchronously over several days: 32 painting sessions in total (four pairs of participants \(\times \) two painting sessions per day \(\times \) four days). Our first user study suggested higher perceived collaboration and closeness in PaintBranch than in the pen-and-paper baseline, but these patterns should be interpreted cautiously given our fixed-order, cross-medium study design. The second illustrated different uses and collaboration profiles that emerged from our sessions. This includes how experienced artists painted for shorter periods over larger areas, how participants reported high satisfaction with their collaborator’s work, how participants’ satisfaction with their own work increased towards the last painting session, and how the majority of pairs of participants engaged with PaintBranch’s branching features. Our results highlight how artists could leverage PaintBranch to fulfil collaborative and personal needs. We conclude by discussing how PaintBranch can be further explored through collaborations involving larger participant numbers to synchronous, collocated experiences, and how those experiences can affect co-presence, UX, and ownership of the artwork.
