Wednesday, July 26, 2017

JOURNEY / My First Sticker Pack app

I decided to write a little "Behind The Screen" story of my first iMessage Sticker Pack app made for iPhone and iPad, currently available at Apple App Store. Hopefully this would be helpful to inspire other artists, illustrator, animators, and creators thinking to make their own app.

Woofy Stickers

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/woofy-stickers/id1234473192?mt=8


Just Like Writing A Book

Creating a collection of stickers is like writing a book. It is not actually a linear process.

You start by collecting a lot of photo references, and in my case, I do collect a lot of dogs photos. Then the next step is of course to draw a lot of doodles. Out of 1000 drawings over a long period of time, maybe you get roughly 10 good enough stickers. That is my quick estimation. But then again, we need to keep the similar style and combine some ideas for final product.

Especially with iMessage stickers, we need to think what kind of emotion or expression would like to be shared by a person sharing the sticker. I test this with some friends and my wife also.

Draw A Lot: Digital and Analog way combined

I used to bring my A5 drawing pads with me and draw using pen or pencil while inside the train or bus. These days, I am drawing using my iPad and sometimes my iPhone. I do not have to buy a new drawing pad each time and take photos for each little drawing. The process is a lot streamlined and smoother nowadays with iPad having built in camera and Internet capability.



With iPad, I am using this drawing app called Paper 53 app a lot. I think it is one of my favourite doodling tools, apart from Tasayui Sketches and also Pro Create.  But I think Paper 53 app is the best for me because I like to quickly put down my ideas and thought into drawings and Paper 53 is really fast and it also provides a set of very natural drawing tools.

I am currently using iPad Air and also Pencil 53 as you can see above, but finger drawing is still pretty handy in most cases. Sometimes I draw on sofa or even on bed, whenever I got a new drawing idea. I did get my iPad Pro quite recently and use the Apple Pencil a lot. I made my sticker pack app using iPad Pro and ArtRage app for paint brush look.

Whenever I finished drawings, I quickly send it as PDF or as PNG to my email as backup. Sometimes I posted them into Twitter or Instagram, if it has a bit of fun story to share.

Challenge Yourself

For me, the experience of creating the first app is a big deal, eventhough it is just a sticker app.

I learn to:

  • Use XCode 
  • Package the stickers
  • Design the app icon
  • Processing and preparing the product
  • Publishing the app

I always had this question: "I am not a programmer, but I always want to make some kind of app that other people can use and wondering if I can make one?" 

Luckily, since last WWDC 2016 - 2017, Apple made it really easy for artists and illustrators to make their own Sticker package for iMessage!

All we need to do is really to download XCode and use the iMessage Sticker Template. The minimum requirements:
- Have a MacBookPro (2010 or earlier)
- Have an iPhone
- Have a good Internet connection to get learning resources.

This video from Apple WWDC really helps me to make my sticker app:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/204/

You can apparently have a free Apple Developer account simply by using your current Apple account. There is no need to pay for Apple Dev license until you decided to want to sell and publish your work at the App Store.

After learning some XCode and Swift, I found also that we can make so many simple apps you can install on your iPhone and iPad very easily. Such as Camera app, Calculator app, Notes app, and many more. Easier than you might have thought. Swift coding is apparently very friendly, similar to Python language.

What is Next?

My sticker app is probably not the top sticker apps out there, in fact far from successful project. But this is only the beginning.

I am currently learning a little bit more about Swift Programming and also how to make AR Augmented Reality app using Apple ARKit (introduced in WWDC 2017). This is really fun app! I think I should make my sticker a bit more animated.

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