Brush Ninja

Free Digital Creativity

← Blog

New Paint Engine

18 March 2018

As I mentioned before, Brush Ninja is in a constant state of improvement. I’ve spent the last few days working on a new paint engine.

Paint Engine?

Ok, I made up the name, but essentially what I have done is change how the images are drawn. I’ve broken things up into different layers. What this means is that we can have more interesting effects. Currently this includes changing the background colour (in the settings - enter a hexadecimal value and press save).

Making this change has also allowed me to add an eraser to the tools available. This means that you can rub out your drawings and show the custom background colour once more.

This is just the start though - and now it’s done I can do things like add onion skinning, which I’ve wanted for a while.

More colours

There’s now more colours to chose from. I added 2 buttons, for lighter and darker variations of the existing colours. You can either press the buttons on the interface, or you can use the + and - shortcut keys. The nice thing if you use the shortcut keys is that you can be painting and then change quickly to a different brightness by pressing plus or minus.

Any other improvements?

I’ve also added a new keyboard shortcut. Pressing [ or ] will move up and down the brush sizes so you can switch quickly with the keyboard.

Finally I’ve spent some time working on the responsiveness of the app. Things are now a bit tighter on mobile so you should be able to scroll a bit less to fit the entire canvas in.

Need a new look?

Support Brush Ninja - Buy a TShirt.

Related Posts

Introducing Paint Brushes

13 April 2020

One of the things I have always wanted Brush Ninja to be is fun. Software is often quite business like and boring, and so I thought I would try to introduce some interesting new brushes to create with. Like the other shapes these brushes are vector based, which means you...

Brush Ninja Version 2 Live!!

13 January 2021

I spent a good amount of time last year rewriting Brush Ninja to use a new graphic engine, and to add a whole stack of features. It was hard work, but it’s been well worth it and it’s now available for everyone to use! What’s new? The drawing engine is...

Brush Ninja Version 2

01 April 2020

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. But I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of Brush Ninja over the last few months. As I mentioned last time, I’ve had to prioritise earning a living. Brush Ninja just about covers costs, but as a project I love it...

‹ Back to Blog

Icon for Brush Ninja Brush Ninja Make Animated Gifs
Icon for Code Ninja Code Ninja Make Art with Code
Icon for Emoji Art Emoji Art Make Emoji Art
Icon for Photo Collage Photo Collage Make Photo Collages
Icon for Comic Maker Comic Maker Make Comics