Category: Publicity

Hong Kong Illstration and Creative Show June 2023

4/7/2023

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!

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Eastern Calligraphy loved in Germany

22/6/2023

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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.

What's the deal with Eastern Calligraphy?

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."

筆有千秋業 - the way of the brush is passed down from generation to generation. And it still develops.

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Expresii in Singapore

29/9/2019

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Earlier this month we were invited to visit NTU, Singapore. Our Dr. Nelson Chu gave a talk titled "The Quest for Digital Ink: developing tools for Painting, Calligraphy & Animation" (Abstract & Bio) on 20th Sept 2019, jointly organised by the School of Computer Science & Engineering, the Alibaba-NTU Joint Research Institute, and the NTU-UBC LILY Center. Dr. Chu shared his journey developing digital brush and paint dating back to 1999. We also met with folks from Cacani the animation system.

We also took the chance to visit the Singapore Zoo, and used Expresii on a 2017 Surface Pro to do some sketch there:

We miss the food there already. （*´▽｀*） We look forward to visiting Singapore again!

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Animated Film "Red Squirrel Mai" at Filmart 2019

24/3/2019

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Red Squirrel Mai 2019 teaser

Expresii is being used for producing the animated feature film Red Squirrel Mai 紅松鼠米高. Do check out the teaser above (those from China can see it here)! This film uses Expresii extensively - both animation background and foreground are drawn with Expresii. The teaser video is shown at Hong Kong Filmart 2019 earlier this month. We thank Ink Culture Ltd and Rooftop Animation for producing such a meaningful work - this animation is the first one made in Hongkong/China that has a distinct style different from all previous works. It's been only less than two years from the setting up studios in Hong Kong and GuangZhou.

Seeing the teaser of Red Squirrel Mai for the first time reminds me of my feeling when I first saw a Kungfu movie of Bruce Lee - it's different from all the previous 'ink wash animation' I've seen! - Nelson Chu
第一次看到《紅松鼠米高》預告片給我的感覺，就像我當年第一次看到李小龍功夫片一樣 —— 這跟之前我看過的都不一樣啊！ - Nelson Chu

Note：You need to watch it on 4k uncompressed to really appreciate the difference. Previous "ink animations" often use simulated fume or make things blurry to give an impression of ink. In contrast, the teaser of <Mai> shows texture that is never seen before. 現在的動畫大都是‘單綫平凃’，而之前的’水墨動畫‘基本三類：1 用CG’雲烟’當水墨，2. 把東西 ’模糊化‘ 當水墨 3.用真的水墨筆觸貼圖。而此《紅》樣片出來的效果是有質感的！這個你必須要用4k 原片才感受到。網絡的FHD 版本太失真了！。。。所以才說像李小龍功夫片，李小龍給你的感覺是’真功夫‘，其他人的動作就是沒那麽快，不是同一個層次的。

Ink wash animation is a proud product of China from the 60's to the 80's. Nowadays, many attempts have been made to modernize ink wash animation. Our Expresii does provide a refreshing visual style that couldn't be achieved before.

One of the film Directors of Red Squirrel Mai Angela Wong draw Mai the squirrel, the movie protagonist, on the spot:

Visitors can get a glimpse of of the production processing:

Our Nelson demonstrates calligraphy in the show:

And also some doodles (after the famous comic artist 草日 from Hong Kong):

An inkjet printer was also setup there to print artwork done with Expresii on the spot:

We're lucky to encounter Kumamon as our Mai just stepped out of our booth: ^_^

P.S. Now you know why we have to put up a notice forbidding new users to use Expresii for making feature films till later in 2019. ^_^

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Shuen Leung tries out Surface Studio & Book 2

18/4/2018

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Hong Kong-based artist Shuen Leung tries out Microsoft Surface Studio and Surface Book 2:

Shuen does artwork in both traditional and digital media. She specially likes Expresii for its ability to undo. "Expresii 是可以undo 的水墨!" (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Shuen in front of her painting 離珠 that gets featured in Microsoft's marketing

She likes the Surface Studio for its gorgeous screen. The screen is so big and sturdy that she can even lean on it to paint.

"屏幕好大手可以枕上去畫好舒服~
解析度很高看得好爽，顏色也好看~"

What about the Surface Pen?

The Surface Pen's weight is just right and feels good in hand. Hope pen tilt will be support on the Studio in the future.
Surface Pen 重心、重量都剛好，手握感是不錯的，
但在 Studio 上未支持側鋒感應，希望日後加入

We too look forward to the Studio supporting pen tilt sensing. ୧༼✿ ͡◕ д ◕͡ ༽୨

Shuen is currently an art teacher and serves as a Background Supervisor in an animation studio in Hong Kong. When not painting, she enjoys practicing Kung-Fu with her fellow Kung-Fu practitioners.

Check out her website and Facebook page for works, art tips and more.

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2017 has been a great year

31/12/2017

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We ended last year with SIGGRAPH Asia 2016 held in Macau. Little did we know it was a great start of an amazing year ahead. For Expresii, there are mainly two major themes in 2017: 1. Animation. 2. Microsoft.

Expresii x Animation

Soon after SIGGRAPH Asia, Angela Wong took Expresii for a spin and made some simple yet impressive animations like the Red squirrel and the Swallows . I think the Red squirrel now becomes a classic sample for modern ink animation. A Japanese anime studio has been using Expresii for background paintings for some TV series but now Expresii is used even for foreground animation! o͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡╮(^ ਊ ^)╭o͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡

Red squirrel by Angela Wong 2017

'Ink Animation' (or 'Brush Painting Animation' or 水墨動畫 in Chinese) was a proud product of China from the 60's-80's but there wasn't much new development since then. There have been attempts to do ink animation using existing fluid simulation in 3D CG software packages but they mostly created something that look like fume (e.g. this) instead of Eastern ink painting. Another popular way was to map captured real brush strokes textures and map them onto 2D or 3D geometry (e.g. those made with LivingCels) - which could make the animation look like shadow play where you see fixed textures shifting around. In 2017 summer, Shanghai Animation Film Studio (上海美影廠) unveiled a new title 《斑羚飛渡》(youtube) and gave a talk on the their new development on ink animation. However, what they claimed to be breakthroughs (building a library of stroke forms and combining 2D with 3D) aren't really breakthroughs.

Swallows by Angela Wong 2017

Now with Expresii we hope to develop a truly modern way of doing ink animation. We are still experimenting and will unveil what we come up with when ready.

Expresii x Microsoft

We started to get attention from Microsoft near the end of last year. Once we got in contact with the right personnel things happened pretty quickly. In April we secretly flew to Redmond to meet with Microsoft technical folks and management including Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Devices, Panos Panay, who was impressed by our Expresii. Our saying 'every stroke has its own personality' struck him. He specifically asked to have our app ported to their App Store and we did . Panos asked why don't they hire this guy (i.e. our tech guru Nelson Chu). And he was told that Nelson did join Microsoft several years back and he was actually a key contributor to Project Gustav, which later became Fresh Paint - which Panos himself still uses to show their hardware. Within our short trip, we were filmed in Seattle for a Microsoft partner video (by Watts, see their page for a longer version of the video):

Behind the scene: shooting at Seattle for Expresii app

Video shooting for Surface Pro launch: Angela Wong interview

Filming Angela Wong using Expresii on Surface Pro

Video shooting for Surface Pro launch: Angela Wong demo'ing strokes in Expresii

Video shooting for Surface Pro launch: Nelson Chu demo'ing Expresii

All these were in preparation for the then-top-secret global launch of the New Surface Pro in May. It's our honor that Panos decided to talk about Expresii on stage himself. We were also invited to local launches in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Later Microsoft also features Expresii on their Surface Pen page as well as their 'Apps for Windows Ink' collection.

We are especially proud to be the only team from Asia to be featured in Microsoft's 2017 app partner collage video. In fact, when we cut out the parts, we are surprised that Expresii bits total 30 seconds, or 1/4 of the 2-min. collage's length! And notice that the other app partners include giants like Adobe, Autodesk & Corel.

In Expresii, not only are we able to develop advanced software technology that even giant competitors can't make, we are also promoting the good side of our culture through technology. Expresii is not a me-too app. We have our own visions and we try our best to implement them even given limited resources.

In Eastern Watercolor, every stroke is essential to the spirit, the emotion. Each stroke has its own personality. - Angela Wong in the Microsoft Partner Video

Year 2018 ahead

Expresii is being developed as a painting app and we didn't expect it to be used more and more in animation. It was even used in this 2017 TED-ed Animation . We may be a bit quiet lately but we are far from being lazy. We just can't wait to show you new stuffs when they are ready. We are really grateful to our partners and friends for making things happen. We look forward to more industry collaboration and new possibilities in 2018! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

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Sneak Peek of Ink Pusher at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2017

20/12/2017

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We thank Mark Lam of CGVisual.com for introducing us in the session 'CG in China' at SIGGRAPH ASIA 2017, held last month in Bangkok, Thailand.

Our new ink pusher tool was shown to public for the first time during the session. Here is the video again:

As you can see, you get just-right amount of control and things stay like water-based paint with details.

We can't wait to try it on big devices like the Surface Studio. Ψ( ﾟ∀ﾟ)Ψ

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Keeping Tradition Alive 只有發展才能保留

23/10/2017

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Earlier this month, our Dr. Nelson Chu, along with two more alumni , was invited to speak in an alumni sharing session by HKUST. You can review the whole sharing here. Nelson showed our ground-breaking app Expresii on a tablet computer to the audience.

Digital Art not real art? 數位藝術不是真藝術？

During the Q&A section, Nelson was asked to comment on how to deal with people saying digital art is not real art. To answer this, let's first assume people don't regard digital art as real art because they think operations like undo and redo mean cheating. Let's here what Nelson has to say:

One may say there's no mistakes in art so there's no need for undo. Okay, then let's regard undo's and redo's as opportunities to go back and forth in time. - Nelson Chu

'Long time ago when the Western fountain pen got introduced to the East, people might say "pen calligraphy" is not calligraphy. Only brush calligraphy is. But now people accept that pen calligraphy is also calligraphy' said Nelson.

Nelson is a firm believer of digital calligraphy. See how he does digital calligraphy with his own tool Expresii:

From the above videos, you see how undo's and redo's allowed more flexibility and save time to create the perfect design without wasting paper. (^(エ)^)

Embracing New Tools

In deed, if you look at the history of writing tools in East Asia, you will see we keep adding new tools to our arsenal over the years. If we insist that a new tool has to act exactly like what came before it, there wouldn't have been brush calligraphy in the first place because we would still be using carving knifes to write.

We should really embrace new technology and explore what we can do with it.

History of writing tools in East Asia

我們拿書法來談談工具的影響吧。毛筆書法的出現，是因為我們發明了毛筆。試想想，如果我們都堅持新工具一定要跟之前的一模一樣，那我們可能還是用着刻刀來刻字呢，而毛筆書法根本不會發展出來。

也許以前有人說，硬筆寫的不是書法，只有毛筆寫的才是書法。但現在大家都已接受硬筆書法也是書法。我們深信，數位書法是必然會發展起來。

Changing Business Model

Another possible reason why people don't consider digital art real is that they can't sell it to galleries or collectors like they do with works done in physical media. People are concerned that artists (along with a whole ecosystem of art dealers) can not make a living if there are no originals (vs. digital copies) to sell.

To respond to this, firstly, we'd like to emphasis that artistic value is NOT market value. If we stick to the question of whether something is real art we should really judge it by its artistic value. Whether it sells or not is a completely different story. For a painting, we judge its artistic value by e.g. the use of colors or composition, which you can also find in digital art.

Secondly, business models can adapt to changes. A century ago, musicians made a living by performing live. With the invention of sound recorder, musicians don't lose their job simply because there is a way to playback their music. Instead, a whole ecosystem of record companies & distributors came into existence. And then came the digital age, when people don't buy CD's as often. Record companies could blame digital music making it easy to be pirated. Then Apple fights the problem by providing a way to get legit music easier than looking for pirated copies. And if you think those big companies are paying artists too little royalty , now independent artists can sell their music, art or tutorials via sites like Gumroad with a much bigger cut, effectively democratizing art selling for creators.

消失中的手寫字 hand writing anyone?

久不久就有人發表文章，說現代人都用電腦手機，都不會寫字了。而且電腦字體的流行，讓人廉價使用。街上原本很美的手寫字招牌，一下子被呆板的電腦字體所取代。

我們不能逆轉電子產品的普及應用，但可把東西改進，讓它更適合我們。我們在軟件上努力，做出Expresii 水墨書法軟件，讓大家可以更好的在電子時代，承傳並發展中國書法和水墨畫。其實，電腦上也可以手寫字啊！

In the Chinese community, we regularly see complaints about new gadgets making our younger generation forgetting how to write with their hands. The rise of computer fonts also turned beautiful calligraphic signs into unimpressive 'computer-font' ones in our city . All these new gadgets seem to take away our cultural heritage.

Gadgets only get more popular and we can't revert that. But what we can do is to build new tools to go with them so that we can breathe new life into our culture. In Expresii, we're actually making digital art organic to a whole new level - in response to existing paint programs making brush strokes that are so sterile.

Old neon vs New LED sign (Macau 2014)

Wu GuanZhong (吳冠中) 1919-2010

To Keep Tradition Alive = To Bring In New Life

保留傳統，只有發展才能保留，不發展就不可能保留。 - 吳冠中

以上是已故著名畫家吳冠中的一句話，語出這裡。我把它翻譯成：To Keep Tradition Alive = To Bring In New Life。華人都很講‘傳統’，但真的，‘傳統’不是死的，而是需要我們去繼續發展下去的。希望大家不要抗拒新發展。新發展是難的，方向也不一定對。如果大家對我們的發展有什麼看法，歡迎指正。在此也僅希望從事教育的朋友，或者關心傳統的朋友，如果覺得我們做的事情是對的，請給予支持，幫忙廣傳。感謝！

I can't emphasize enough the importance of new development. If you think what we do with Expresii is worthwhile, please help spread the word. Thank you!

Further on the pros and cons of digital painting: Why go digital?

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Inktober & Giveaway!

14/10/2017

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We are half way through October now and have you started your Inktober yet? This year, Angela Wong a.k.a. GingerCatSneeze on Tumblr. has been using Expresii to do her Inktober (re-posted with permission):