In mid-October,  we had an opportunity to work with Hong Kong Dance Company  for a show called "After Snowfall - Expressions of Wang Xizhi’s timeless brushstrokes大型舞蹈詩《快雪時晴》 —— 王羲之書法隨想". Essentially, it's a dance show inspired by a calligraphy work by Wang Xizhi. The HK Dance Company would like to add some technology element into the mix.   

We did some calligraphy and painting under the theme of dance.   For the four days of dance performance, fives Expresii digital ink works were made:  【香港舞蹈團】、【鼓舞飛揚】、【扇舞翩躚】、【蹈歌墨舞】、【傘舞輕旋】.

For calligraphy videos, please see our Facebook page:  HKDance香港舞蹈團    Drum 鼓舞飛揚    Fan扇舞翩躚    Song蹈歌墨舞

The "CoPilot+ PC" Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7 became available since June 2024. We tested them in June but were rather disapointed with the performance: we got only 17 FPS on the X Elite model with OpenGL implementation Mesa 24.1.0.  Now a few months have passed and we found some good performance  increase: we now get 50 FPS with   Mesa 24.3.0!  

Microsoft has probably also optimized the Prism emulator to give the performance boost. There is still on ARM-native version of Expresii so we still need to rely on the Prism emulator.   If you want to use Sufrace Pro 11 for Expresii, make sure you use the X Elite model instead of the X Plus  model, because the latter only gives 22 FPS now. Also, note that the new Surface Laptop 7 DO NOT support pen input (older models of Surface Laptop do).   If you want  smooth performance for painting, you should pick up older models like the Surface Pro 8 i5, which can give 100+ FPS.

VMWare has recently made their virutal machine software Fusion free-for-personal-use. The current version also supports OpenGL 4.2, which is more than what Expresii requires. We gave a shot on running Expesii using it. The good news is that Expresii  runs without error.

However, one hurdle is that graphics tablets are not plug-and-play.

We finally got  tablet  input working using another piece of softwar called USB Network Gate:

And here is how everything working together:

Performance is only 30-40 FPS on a M1 Mac Book Air, not as good as using Parallels Desktop.  Anyway, this is still one option you can use Expresii on a modern Mac with an ARM  chip. We hope VMware continued to imprve the performance  and also the USB device pass-through. 

We took part in the Hong Kong Illustration and Creative Show 2024 Spring, giving  some talk or demonstrattion at the CGLive booth.  During his talk, our Dr. Nelson Chu showed a little sneak peak of what he's working on for simulating Western watercolor. 

​​We are lucky to have Sensei Shuen to give a demonstration at the booth.  You can learn a lot from her on ink painting and the use of Expresii:

This piece "劔舞乾坤" (sword dance) is spirited.  The subject's pose, the composition, the linework, the contrast all contributed to the energetic look of it. Find out how it's done in the above video!

And here's the calligraphy our Dr. Nelson Chu did  as inscription for the painting:

The all new WACOM Movink was on pre-oder at the show. It's among the few places  where you can try the new hardware first hand. Pretty good price at HKD5889 there (compared to the offcial price in another region next to Hong Kong)! It's really thin and light.

Once again, we were honored to have Sensei Shuen give an ink painting demo at the Hong Kong Illustraion and Creative Show last weekend. This time we   use the new Wacom Cintiq Pro 22:

Watch the process:

We also  offered a free Ink painting class.  Within the one-hour class,  Sensei Shuen taught us how to paint simple subjects like punkin, tangerine, and wisteria.   We are amazed by   students'  interesting designs! 

Gradually, we're making digital ink painting more popular. We thank CGLive for organizing the class!

In 2014, we tried our hands on a USD150   8" Windows tablet.  Our watercolor flows on such a device, but the Atom-based CPU is rather weak to give a very smooth run. In recent years, more and more handheld gaming devices emerged including quite some running Windows. Among them is the OneXPlayer 2 - one that supports stylus input, touch and its game controllers are detachable, making it possible to be used as an 8" tablet PC!

A few years back, many of those handheld PC's from GPD or OneNetbook  use Intel CPU's.  They are not bad for every-day tasks, but when it comes to integrated GPU performance, those Intel chips were not as good as those from AMD.  Since the last couple of years, thanks to the booming mobile gaming industry, there's a wave of AMD-based gaming handheld coming out, the most recent one being the    Lenovo's Legion Go.  Today we got hold of a OneXPlayer 2 with AMD 6800u and 32GB RAM to test Expresii on. This is last-year's model, and they have a refresh called the OneXPlayer 2 Pro using the AMD 7840U. 

In our tests, the 6800u OneXPlayer 2 can run Expresii smoothly even at 15W max. The device is not primarily designed for painting, or using the pen in general, and we would suggest a few improvements to the design of the system if OneNetbook, the company behind OneXPlayer, wish to cater for pen usage more: 1. when the machine is used like a laptop with the official keyboard attached, the pen stroking on the upper corners of the screen would make the device wobble.   2. device cannot be used like a tablet lying flat on the table, since the air intake grille is on the back. To fix 1, the kickstand can be made wider like the Surface Pro or the latest Lenovo Legion Go. To fix 2, rubber feet could be added, just like for a normal laptop. For the current users, a makeshift could be mobile phone kickstands that stick to the back of the device. Use ones that adds 4 mm or more, so that they double as feet for lying the device flat.

The OneXPlayer 2 is a bit heavy at 719g   and clunky to hold single-handed.  The heat it produces along with fan noise can also be annoying. The model we have has an APU 6800u produced on 6nm process. With the latest models with APU 7840u or 7640u, which are made on 4nm, the heat is reduced and battery life prolonged.  

Once again, the gaming industry has brought about hardware trend that also benefits us as artists. BTW, It's interesting that OneNetbook  recently announced the OneMix 5, one that looks like a mini Surface Laptop Studio that ues a "Z-fold" design, and the first video on this device on their official Bilibili channel is on painting.   Looks like they are also interesting in the digital artist market. 

We have invited  Sensei Shuen  to demo ink painting  at the Hong Kong Illustration and Creative Show on 26 June 2023. Listen to Sensei   Shuen  (in Cantonese, with English subtitle) as she paints, with tips in using Expresii and WACOM hardware:

Thanks for visiting!  Hopefully more people are aware of our invention and effort in digital painting development.

The spec of Windows machine used for the demo:

Basically, you need a good GPU  (graphics card) to run Expresii smoothly.  e.g. an nvidia 1060 with 6GB vRAM is good for running Expresii smoothly on a 4K monitor. If you're only using a full-HD monitor, you can go by with modern integrated  GPU like Intel Iris Xe. For example, the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (i7) or 8 (i5) can already run Expresii smoothly on their own 2.5k monitor.

We thank CGLive and Wacom Hong Kong for their support!

I was told that recently Japanese calligraphy, or just Japanese culture in general, is much appreciated in Germany   and Wacom has been showing Expresii for calligraphy in their German Experience Center in the past few months in events like "Night of Museums", or "Japan Day":

Wacom official artist Miki Amano is also showing the public the use of Expresii with Wacom tablets for digital calligraphy, with   sample works   including their official tagline written in Chinese. 

In China, calligraphy has been the basic training for painting - it lets the artist acquire the dexterity for controlling the brush.   Also, calligraphy is inherently an abstract art form.  Arguably, cursive calligraphy is considered the highest form of art in China. No wonder why Pablo Picasso said "Had I Been Born Chinese, I Would Have Been A Calligrapher, Not A Painter."

We did some demos for the Year of the Rabbit 2023 using a Wacom tablet.   The  great thing about using Expresii is that it gives you organic quality of real brush and ink, but yet you can always undo and redo. 

書法 配圖 設計：

Finally,  we made a video on   Why Expresii is good for improvised sketching and more (in English, with a little intro in Chinese), which includes quotes from some artists:

We're very happy to see our Expresii app being paired with Wacom's hardware at the booth of CG Live ​ at the Hong Kong Illustration And Creative Show  (HKICS)  2022 held on 26-27th Nov 2022.  This two-day event was short but packed with visitors. The HKICS has quickly become a major event for creatives held in Hong Kong.

日前我們因CGLive 有幸參與香港插畫及文創展2022，見到很多對繪畫創作有興趣的人士，超熱鬧der   ~ 這展雖然歷史不長，但很快成為了香港文創界的盛事！

We thank CG Live for having Expresii in some of the demo machines there in their booth. They got Wacom + Expresii bundle promotion  for this event.    Sensei   Shuen  also attracted viewers when she demo'ed using Expresii to paint on the latest Wacom Cintiq Pro 27.

感謝 CG Live 安裝Expresii 給參展人士試玩！他們還給了會場限定 Wacom + Expresii 組合優惠呢。璇老師除了下面說的入門班外，還在CG Live 攤位示範使用Expresii，也吸引了觀眾駐足觀看！

Sensei Shuen's   demo on the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27  大家看看璇老師的數碼水墨示範：

Wacom has been sponsoring the Show and this time, they also sponsored the 'Wacom Classroom‘ as one of the activities in the Show. We were glad to have Sensei Shuen  teach two introductory classes on using Expresii to do digital ink paintings here.  Sensei   Shuen has been using Expresii for digital ink painting since very early days of Expresii. Before working for an animation studio from 2017 to 2020, Shuen had been teaching kung-fu and extracurricular painting to   school   children , as well as doll making and manga making to adults.  We hope all the students enjoyed the class.

 Wacom 近年都有贊助這文創展，這次也包括贊助了‘Wacom  教室’活動。我們也有幸在這活動請到璇老師來教兩堂入門電腦水墨課。璇老師使用Expresii  軟件非常熟練，她由Expresii一開始beta 已經在用。老師的教學經驗也豐富：2017-2020  為一家動畫公司服務時，有負責教junior    animator 使用Expresii 作畫；在此之前，老師也有教小孩打功夫，教小學生課外繪畫班，和教人偶製作與漫畫製作。璇老師教得很用心，希望所有學員都玩得開心~

A big thanks to CG Live for having us at the booth and also organizing the Wacom class!   We also thank the organizer HKHands for organizing this show! Hope we can joint more forces to promote digital painting and calligraphy!

再次感謝CG Live    讓我們參與這次本地文創界盛事。也感謝HKHands  組織了這文創展！希望多點有心人，可以合力讓電腦書法跟水墨普及。一路走來不容易，請大家多多支持我們！