Happy (slightly late) Halloween!

Last week was half term here in the UK, so I went on holiday with my wife and son - we had a great time going to museums and the beach and playing in the arcades.

The week before that I launched Brush Ninja Memberships.

It's interesting to me that when I started Brush Ninja I didn't know how I would make it earn money so I can work on it full time. I didn't want to sell peoples data, I wanted to treat the people who use my website in the way I would like to be treated. Too many websites take peoples information and sell it to the highest bidder, generally through behavioural advertising - I really dislike that.

Hi there - you may have noticed I took a couple of months break from the newsletter over the summer holidays.

I took this time off while my son was off school so that we could spend some quality time doing fun things. But he's back at school now so I can't use him as an excuse not to write the newsletter 😄 Of course I actually quite like writing the newsletter. It gives me a chance to look back at the things I have been working on and get feedback from the Brush Ninja users (you can reply to this email to contact me if you wish).

Whilst I haven't been sending the newsletter I have still been woring on things with Brush Ninja. There's been a few minor bug fixes, but mostly I've been working on the new memberships system that I hope to be launching in the next few weeks.

As I mentioned previously, Brush Ninja memberships are entirely optional. All user accounts will be paid, but if you want to use Brush Ninja for free then it will be exactly the same as it is at the moment.

Hi there - thanks for your patience with this months newsletter.

It's a few days late but hopefully the new feature I've been building will make it worthwhile. You might be able to guess from the email subject but there are actually 2 things I've been working on.

Memberships/ User Accounts

Possibly not the feature you were expecting me to lead with but I have been working on user accounts for Brush Ninja. These accounts will be paid, and entirely optional. All existing features of Brush Ninja will work exactly as they do now for both free and paid users.

Hi there - hope this finds you well.

This month has found me considering Brush Ninja quite a bit and trying to decide what I want to do with it in the future. I also added a new feature.

Since it's the Queens Platinum Jubilee over here in England I also spent a couple of days making a little papercraft crown.

The future

Hi

In the UK it was a bank holiday this weekend - I'm not entirely sure why. There's probably a reason but what it means for me is I get to spend an extra day with my son. So we did some shopping, and some gardening, and watched a film. He even did a science experiment, mixing vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to make foamy eruptions. It's great seeing a young person grow and develop, and that's why I love making Brush Ninja and giving it away for free.

As mentioned last month I've started writing some Brush Ninja tips. I'm not ready to share them yet but I'm going to be turning them into an ebook that I will sell. I'd like to make some money out of this project so that I can spend more time working on it, but I still plan to share many of the tips in this newsletter, and will be putting the entire thing on Patreon.

So far I've written about a dozen pages, but I need to do some illustrations to go with it else it won't be entirely clear what I'm talking about. All going well I will share the first (of many) tip in next months newsletter.

title: '#12: Bug Fixes and the Gallery'

Hello!

Last month I said I was going to be working on the Brush Ninja gallery, and that's exactly what I have done.

Hi there,

February was a busy month for me. I managed to finish the three new apps I've been mentioning over the last few newsletters and get them released. Finishing the apps is one thing, but I was expecting the documentation and website changes to take a lot longer so I am really pleased it went as smoothly as it did.

Richard Byrne from FreeTech4Teachers has made an awesome demo video showing how to use all of the new apps. Thanks Richard!

Hi! The first email of the year is finally here!

Sorry but I totally missed last months email - I forgot all about it until we were too far into the month and it just felt too late to send something. On the plus side, this means I have many more things to mention this month.

As I mentioned last time I have been working on a new "Comic Creator" app, but since then inspiration has struck and I've beed working on two more apps!

App no. 1: Comic Creator

Happy Holidays!

This will be the last newsletter this year, and what a strange year it's been.

Here in the UK everything is starting to slow down (at least in my house) and we focus on staying warm, eating and giving (and receiving) presents. I normally take as much time off as I can in December. For me it's a time for family, and relaxing. Before I had a child I would spend a lot of time playing video games, and working on side projects and doing things I had no time for the rest of the year. Now I'm a Dad there's a lot more preparing for a proper Christmas, and entertaining a 5 year old - which is a different type of fun.

This year I hope to spend some of my free time working on Brush Ninja - specifically working on something brand new. I have started making a little app for making small magazines. The magazines will be 8 page booklets that you print on a single piece of paper and then, with a single scissor cut and some folding, turn into a comic/ magazine/ book/ leaflet/ whatever you like.

Hello - hows things going?

I was going to write this on Monday but my internet stopped working. That's one of the problems with working digitally, we're at the mercy of things that we can't control. It's working at the moment though so I'm going to finish it off.

I've been a bit slow with new features and functionality recently. Sometimes I feel bad about this, like I should be pumping out new features all the time, but Brush Ninja isn't my job - I need to do other work to earn money to provide for my wife and son (BTW big thank you to my awesome Patrons who continue to support me!). Plus I just need to do other things for my own mental health.

However I've recently been getting the Brush Ninja itch again and so I am now building out some new features for the app.

Hi there - I hope you've had a wonderful summer break!

I normally write the Brush Ninja newsletter on the first day of the month but you may (or may not) have noticed that last months was missing. I'm going to say this is because it's the summer holidays and I was taking some time off, but actually I just forgot. Sorry.

But at the same time, I did enjoy some time off. I haven't worked on Brush Ninja for a month or so, but I have a list of things I want to work on (including things I have have mentioned in previous newsletters) so I hope to start on them in the not too distant future.

Privacy

Hi there - I hope things are going well.

The educational year is winding down now. I believe it's mostly stopped in the US, and here in the UK the summer holidays will begin in about 3 weeks. As such I'm preparing for the summer break and looking back at what I've done over the last year.

Last month I launched the Eraser brush on Brush Ninja, and it seems to have gone really well. There were a couple of bugs, but they weren't major ones, and overall the improvement has been well worth the wait (I think at least).

The birth of Brush Ninja

Hey there - hope you're well.

You may have guessed from the subject line but this month I discovered how to add an eraser to Brush Ninja.

Eraser!!!!

I say discovered, it's a feature that was recently added to the graphics library I use. It's all very new so it's likely to change, but I have an early version working.

Hey hey - I hope this email finds you well!

I’ve been taking a bit of time off from building Brush Ninja this month. I make Brush Ninja for free, and so I have to do other “real” work as well in order to earn a living.

As such there’s no significant development updates but there have been some smaller bug fixes and improvements which are always satisfying to publish.

I’ve also been thinking about what I can do with Brush Ninja in the future.

Hey there - can you believe we're already a quarter of the way through the year?

When I set the schedule for this newsletter I didn't consider I would be sending it out on April Fools. Fortunately I don't join in so there's no tricks in here.

Hey there - I hope everyone is doing well.

Here in the UK we're getting ready for schools to reopen next week. They were closed at Christmas because of a spike in Covid cases over the holidays.

However, homeschooling my 5 year old hasn't stopped me from working on Brush Ninja.

Over the last few weeks I've made quite a few tweaks and improvements to the app and they are currently being tested by the Brush Ninja patrons (join my Patreon to get access to the beta).

Hi there, welcome to my brand new newsletter! 😃

This is the first issue of the Brush Ninja newsletter so I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has signed up. I wasn't sure if anybody would so it's fantastic to see that so many want to be kept updated!