News
The latest Brush Ninja and animation news and reviews.
Say Hello to Ninja Puzzles: A New Dimension of Fun and Learning
05 July 2023
Welcome to Brush Ninja, your go-to destination for educational applications! We are thrilled to announce the launch of our latest addition, Ninja Puzzles. In this blog post, I will introduce you to Ninja Puzzles and highlight the range of free downloadable puzzles that await you. Unleashing Ninja Puzzles: At Ninja...
Introducing Our Exciting New Collection of Versatile Lesson Plans!
15 June 2023
Are you looking for engaging and comprehensive lesson plans that cover a wide range of subjects? I am thrilled to announce the launch of Brush Ninja lesson plans, designed to make teaching a breeze across math, history, English, science, environment, and art. Whether youāre an educator, a homeschooling parent, or...
Video Export Beta for Brush Ninja Animation Maker
30 May 2023
For a long time I have wanted to add the ability to export animations as videos. I even added sound effects in the hope that I could, but I couldnāt find a way to do it. Well, today I am happy to announce that I now have video export ready...
From Anticipation to Z-Depth: A Comprehensive Guide to Animation Terminology
11 May 2023
In this blog post, weāll be diving into one of Brush Ninjaās newest offerings: the Animation Glossary. As anyone who has ever tried their hand at animating knows, there are many terms and concepts that can seem confusing or overwhelming at first. But with the help of this glossary, both...
Brush Ninja Youtube Channel
06 March 2023
Iāve been thinking about this for a while and last month I finally started working on this. Thereās now a Brush Ninja Youtube channel. Thereās currently 2 video tutorials - but I hope to add new ones semi-regularly. Brush Ninja Quick Start Tutorial Follow Brush Ninja on Youtube ā How...
Typing Ninja
16 December 2022
My background is in videogames. I worked for a games company for 11 years, and Iāve worked on dozens of games over the last 20 years. Iāve thought about adding simple games to Brush Ninja for a while, and this is the first. Itās Typing Ninja, a simple game to...
Sound Effects and Audio
08 December 2022
One of the things I like doing is collecting feedback from users. Since Brush Ninja has been around I have added a bunch of new features based entirely upon things that users have suggested. Custom Images Background Images Custom Colours Different Brushes And moreā¦ There has always been a lot...
Photo Collage Improvements
15 November 2022
I have recently spent a bit of time improving the Photo Collage app. I have meant to go back to it for a while and this week I finally got to make the changes. Firstly - I added a bunch of new photo layouts. I started by adding some more...
Colour Palettes
11 November 2022
Ever since version 2, back in January 2021, Brush Ninja has had selectable colours, but picking good colour combinations is hard. A feature I really like in apps like ProCreate is custom colour palettes, so I thought I would add them to Brush Ninja. The colours in the palettes are...
Brush Ninja Memberships
19 October 2022
This week sees the release of Brush Ninja memberships - itās been a long time coming and I hope I have done it in a way that works well for everyone. The version of Brush Ninja that has been free for the last 4 years is still free and always...
Brush Ninja Paper Toy
01 May 2022
Over the last few months Iāve gotten a bit addicted to creating paper toys. These are kits that you print out on your computer, then cut out and glue together to create fun little models. Itās become almost meditative, quite a mindful thing that I can sit down and do...
Online newsletter archives
28 February 2022
Just for fun, I have added past newsletters to the website. I find it interesting looking through them and seeing what I wrote, and what was happening at the time. Going forward I will be keeping this up to date so that there is a permanent record of what I...
More free apps: Photo Collage maker, and Emoji Art Designer
18 February 2022
A couple of months ago I quietly launched a Comic Maker, and now Iāve added 2 more apps to the list. We have the Photo Collage Maker, and the Emoji Art Designer. Photo Collage I wanted to make something for my wife to use when she sells things online, plus...
New free app: Comic Maker
05 December 2021
As I mentioned in the newsletter recently, I have been working on a simple comic maker. This little app takes 8 images, one image for each page of the comic, and then positions them on a page so that they can be exported as a single image and then printed....
New: Erasers, Animation Sizes, and more Stickers
10 June 2021
So many new features this month, and some of them are hotly anticipated. Eraser Ever since the Brush Ninja 2 release the most commonly requested new feature has been to add an Eraser. With the switch to a vector based rendering engine I had to remove the eraser. I felt...
Now you can use Webcam images as Backgrounds
26 February 2021
This week I have added a feature nobody was asking for, but I thought would be fun. Webcam background images. The idea is that you can take photos with your webcam and then animate on top of them. This means you could draw little cartoons of people dancing on your...
Brush Ninja Newsletter
31 January 2021
Iāve wanted a way to reach the creatives who use Brush Ninja for a while, so Iāve decided to setup a newsletter. Previously Iāve had Patreon (which is great for beta stuff), Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram - but Iām only one man and I find it hard to update all...
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 itās been well worth it and itās now available for everyone to use! Whatās new? The drawing engine is...
Custom Animation Backgrounds
28 May 2020
Update: As of January 2021 this feature is now available on Brush Ninja. Thereās more help on setting custom backgrounds here. After āmore coloursā, custom background images is the most requested new feature. Iāve been asked for this a lot of times, and itās finally coming in Brush Ninja version...
Shape Palette
13 May 2020
In Brush Ninja Classic (the current version), you can draw rectangles, circles, triangles and stars. Brush Ninja v2 allows so much more. This feature actually came about by accident. I had added the basic shape drawing functionality to Brush Ninja v2, and then wanted to add a heart shape. Which...
Editable Text
06 May 2020
Surprisingly (to me) I havenāt had many comments about adding text in Brush Ninja. It was a highly requested feature until I added it, and then people used it. But I wasnāt entirely happy. I wanted to be able to edit it. And now that I can move, scale and...
Custom Color Palette
29 April 2020
One of the most requested features is more colors in the color palette. In version 1 I intentionally kept the palette limited. This was for 2 reasons. To make Brush Ninja easy to use To encourage creativity through limitations Having now spent 2 years working on, and thinking about, Brush...
Modifying Objects Properties
20 April 2020
I think modifying object properties after they have been created is a really powerful thing. This will give us the ability to make some much more creative animations. Currently in Brush Ninja V2 you can change objects colours after they have been drawn. I think this will allow some quite...
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...
New Drawing Tools
07 April 2020
I really wanted to improve the drawing tools with the new Brush Ninja update. Drawing images is great, but itās much easier to work with objects. I attempted a fix for this with the move and rotate tools, and while they are quite cool itās a bit awkward if you...
Brush Ninja Version 2
01 April 2020
Itās been a while since Iāve posted here. But Iāve been thinking a lot about the future of Brush Ninja over the last few months. As I mentioned last time, Iāve had to prioritise earning a living. Brush Ninja just about covers costs, but as a project I love it...
Making Brush Ninja Sustainable
29 March 2019
I made Brush Ninja mostly because I thought it was a fun thing to do, but itās grown a lot bigger than I had imagined. The app is more complex, and has more features than I could have imagined when I started. I always new it had potential but I...
Recent Brush Ninja Updates
29 March 2019
Iāve not posted on the blog much recently, but Brush Ninja has not stood still. In this post I will explain some of the things I have been working on over the last few months. Transform Tools I have added the ability to scale, rotate and move the images you...
Brush Ninja in Education
19 October 2018
Brush Ninja has been getting a lot of attention from educators and teachers recently. Itās fantastic. Of all the use cases I had considered for my little animation app, education was not one I had seriously considered and I really like the idea that itās being used for something useful...
Awesome Animations Showcase
19 July 2018
I love seeing people sharing their Brush Ninja animations on Twitter and I wanted a way to record my favorites. So I have made an animation showcase, that highlights the awesome animations being made in Brush Ninja. If you want your animation to be featured then share the animated gif...
Mac App Released!
24 June 2018
After a couple of months of hard work, a lot more work than I had anticipated, I have finally released Brush Ninja on the Mac App Store! Brush Ninja is something I have really enjoyed working on, and I have a lot of ideas for improvements. Hopefully people like it...
Progress Update
28 April 2018
Recently I have been busy working away on Brush Ninja - but thereās not been much visible progress. My main focus has been on the next stage of Brush Ninja, and thatās making a desktop app. I want to turn this simple web app into something you can use properly....
Animations Save as you Draw
11 April 2018
Something I have wanted to have for a long time is a Brush Ninja file format, and this is the first step towards that. Animations are now saved in your web browser so that you can come back to them later and continue where you left off. Even if your...
Background Images from Unsplash and More
27 March 2018
Brush Ninja is designed as a simple way to get your ideas moving. I want everything to be as straight forward as can be. And so, with that in mind, I bring you the latest update. Background Images from Unsplash Iām a web designer by trade, so Iāve used Unsplash...
New Paint Engine
18 March 2018
As I mentioned before, Brush Ninja is in a constant state of improvement. Iāve 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. Iāve broken things up...
Recent Brush Ninja Updates
13 March 2018
Over the last few weeks I have updated Brush Ninja at least once a day. What follows are some of the highlights from the last few days. New Tools Previously there were brushes (which I have decided are now pens), and now we have shapes and lines. Simple geometric objects...
Constantly Improving Brush Ninja
04 March 2018
Brush Ninja is something that I have been thinking about on and off for a very long time so I have lots of ideas. That doesnāt mean Iāve worked everything out, or I have all the answers, but it does mean I have a big old todo list. My development...
Welcome to Brush Ninja!
25 February 2018
Brush Ninja is an online, browser based, animation tool. Itās an easy way to create simple animations, for free, without the need to learn complex software (or spend a fortune). In a former life I worked at Miniclip.com - and so I saw the development of the Sketch Star project....
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