slewis

Professionally I write software to create performance reports and future forecasts for gas and hydro power plants.  For fun I like to draw pixel art, make little software projects, and am learning mandarin.  I write about these things on my blog sometimes: https://slewis.wiki

Web: https://slewis.wiki

Last Notes

2025-12-18 17:02:55 UTC

A while ago I wrote a script to convert #uxn .icn files to .png. For my #DecemberAdventure I wrote an accompanying script which converts .png files to .icn
This has the effect of pixel-izing the image and I can control which pixels get converted to black or white based on a threshold applied to their R, G, B, alpha values. It also allows me to load any png into Noodle and draw on it!
I am a bit slow when it comes to programming, so my Adventures tend to be limited. But I’m glad I got this done
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/741/641/496/649/626/original/7c839a1ec8a6d8a8.png

2025-11-03 17:31:52 UTC

That was a fun #drawtober. I made it a point to only use #uxn ‘s noodle for my drawings. I learned some new things about how noodle works and was introduced to supporting tools to help draw geometric shapes. I was very pleased that something as simple as discovering how to quickly draw a circle blew me away. My mind blossomed with new ideas of what was possible in my drawings.
Some of my drawings were quick and sloppy, some I sunk 2 hours into and really really like. I am proud of all of them.

2025-10-09 01:24:11 UTC

8/31 #drawtober
Limited time to draw this one, but it gave me a chance to play with Moogle!! When I loaded the .icn file into Noodle my mouth dropped I couldn’t believe how awesome it was I could make clean circles! This changes everything. #uxn #varvara
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/341/581/670/552/017/original/8ba2d241b2ef6182.png

2025-10-08 01:37:33 UTC

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mind blown. I forgot about moogle. I think the one time I checked it out I didn’t yet know what a .icn file was or that it could be used across the uxn-verse! I’ve used gimp a little too. I don’t know how to make transparent overlays yet but I will find out!

2025-10-07 23:56:53 UTC

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one thing I’m struggling with is how to make good looking circles in Noodle, large or small. Maybe this is just a general 1bit drawing technique, but what do you do to make circles in Noodle? For instance in the Valentinel Bridge

2025-10-07 02:50:49 UTC

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that makes a lot of sense now when I examine the style of your drawings. No wonder they look so sharp and polished! Ok tomorrow’s drawing I will try to use it without fear

2025-10-07 02:45:11 UTC

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yes I think I have a good grasp of the underlying mechanics now. My issue is that I’ve never been drawing and thought “ah yes a perfect time to use the magic wand”. It could be I’m still refining a style and the need for it will arise later? Not sure. But for now I will mostly just forget it’s there. When do you use it most frequently? When you’re drawing structures? Or characters or faces?

2025-10-07 02:34:06 UTC

6/31 Pierce #drawtober
The geometric shapes were inspired by what happens when you use the magic wand tool on thick solid brush lines in #uxn ‘s noodle. I honestly still don’t know how to use the magic wand. I think I get what it does, but I have yet to think of a way to fit it into my drawing arsenal. Maybe I need to see it in action. Anyone have any tips?
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/330/542/496/062/625/original/056cb7cf7537b68d.png

2025-09-29 03:01:57 UTC

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oh.. IN the filename. I never knew, but should have expected haha! I haven’t pulled an update since last year, back then I could noodle test.icn and it would render fine, but perhaps it assumed a standard size?
Anyways, I think it should be fine I’ll msg you on discord if it’s not tho. This is how I felt today:
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/285/347/519/873/702/original/245d96efd0868184.png

2025-09-28 23:32:51 UTC

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I have found that the latest noodle is not compatible with my old .icn files, it scrambles the image. Does noodle read the .icn files in a new way now? Or does it expect a specific image height/width?

2025-06-03 16:08:53 UTC

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it’s working! There was some unexpected behavior that was confusing me.
Mouse2 while using colors ‘2’, ‘3’, or ‘4’ will erase pixels of any color (makes sense to me). But selecting color ‘1’ does not draw anything with Mouse1 and Mouse2 while in color ‘1’ only erases color ‘2’ pixels, not ‘3’ or ‘4’
Maybe this is intended? Regardless, it works perfectly for what I’m trying to use it for :)

2025-06-03 13:05:48 UTC

@npub1z8r…mrq6 i might be missing something obvious, but how does one erase in Oekaki? I can get the eraser icon to appear by pressing ‘1’ but then drawing while holding left or right click doesn’t seem to do anything. Also, is there a preferred forum to discuss your works where I can ask questions like this?

2024-12-30 00:46:51 UTC

@npub1z8r…mrq6 I got myself a Wacom tablet for the holidays and am using Noodle properly for the first time (woo!) I was curious what you typically do with the .icn files. Your drawings that you post are mostly .jpg but I can’t seem to find a way to convert .icn to .jpg. What do you usually use?

2024-11-24 14:43:30 UTC

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where did you acquire the .exe from? Then just use wine to run?

2024-11-10 01:30:53 UTC

@npub1z8r…mrq6 is ayatori still your current workstation? I’m looking to get a laptop that can handle gimp photo editing and basic-ish scripting