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#33: Painting, Animating, Podcast, and more

Hi there

I nearly forgot this months newsletter. I was too busy making a little meditation app. I often find things like this that I want to do but can’t and end up making my own version. Too many apps are overly complicated.

In this case I’m making a simple meditation app. I feel it might help with reducing stress, but all the apps on the phone app stores seem to be paid (at least after 5 minutes of searching), so I’m making a very simple one I can stick on a website.

I basically just want a timer, but I’m adding a cute little blobby character that breathes in time to the meditation. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

Paint Ninja

Anyway - regarding Brush Ninja (what you actually care about 😄), I’ve spent a lot of time on the drawing app, and making it work well on touch devices. It now works on touch screens, and scales quite nicely on smaller screens.

It does work best if you have a stylus of some sort, since your fingers can get in the way of the brush when you draw.

I also got website embeds working, and it’s now on an external website! It’s not ready for use by anyone, but I want to get it on more sites in the future. If you’re interested then you can see it on PhotoEditTools - a website with a bunch of tools for bulk editing photos (Talking of making my own apps, PhotoEditTools is my website as well).

Screenshot 2024-03-05 at 22.12.28 Medium.jpeg

Brush Ninja Animated Gif Maker

Work on the Gif maker this month involved improving how it looks on touch devices. I didn’t realise it was so poorly formatted and it now scales much better on phones and tablets. It also uses slightly less space on desktop machines so if you use a smaller screen there should be less scrolling.

Podcast

Last month I was interviewed for an EdTech podcast called Classroom Dynamics! I was very nervous since I don’t do this sort of thing very often but the host, Adam Todd was really welcoming and tells me it sounds good.

The podcast is due to be broadcast on March 26th. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it!

Screenshot 2024-03-05 at 22.13.44 Medium.jpeg

Theres been a few updates to the gallery this last month.

My favorites include this animation compilation showing art inspired by the artist Chris Uphues (lots of smiley hearts).

Also I found an epic animation showcase that shows all sorts of anime inspired motion. There is a lot of character animation, with some fighting, so maybe not suitable for everyone, but it’s really well done by someone learning to animate. I’d love to see more of this sort of thing.

Screenshot 2024-03-05 at 22.11.26 Medium.jpeg

Thanks!

Thanks for another month of following my adventures with Brush Ninja and for continuing to support the project. See you next month!

Ben

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