It's been a while... check out my new project!
Published: 2021-06-09 17:55:04

Hello! I'm sorry I've been a way for so long. I think I tend to go through phases where I feel like sharing everything and other times I shelter away as I work.

## TL;DR

Skip to the bottom for my project details.

## The story

Today I have a very fun and exciting project I'm working on. A few months ago, I met an online friend who wanted to get into the #nft scene. 

I just so happen to be starting my journey with #nft and learning about it when we ran into each other. We started with coming up with a new project we wanted to build.

### Where did the idea come from?

While working on that project, my new project came to light. I had built a handy little tool for taking our character PNG/SVG images and then generate random final images, resulting in the ability to **quickly** generate thousands of images based off the handful you provide.

It's been one of my favorite personal projects yet because I just did everything **I** wanted to. I let myself do what ever felt right without basing my decisions off of what everyone else was doing or what the "standards" are.

I've come to realize that community standards although can drive a lot of change, growth and stability, it can also dampen creativity. 

I grew up at the very start of what we know as the web (code my first site in 1994). Back then, it was impressive to have an animated gif, and having a gradient bar on your site was outstanding.

![websites from 1994](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/y4nyntsdannueajak234.png)

But it was also the time of fun! We created just because. No one to judge because we didn't use enough space or due to us using colors that are maybe not what others would use. 

So I brought that back with this tool. Nope, not even mobile friendly, just a simple website that you have to use a normal browser on... call me crazy. (it will eventually be mobile friendly...)

It had me excited each day to work on it. It's got my creative juices going, my brain firing on both sides.

## About the Project

-[CharacterGenerator4000.com](https://CharacterGenerator4000.com)

It's built with React. It runs on my Kubernetes instance and the pipeline is setup on gitlab to run my test/build and release. 

I swapped out Serve for an Nginx server, which brought down the delivery time. I still have to fine tune the packages more and if you have advice on how to trim it down further than PLEASE let me know.

It's got some rough edges but overall it's a damn good tool lol. 

### Check out a screenshots! 

#### The intro with diagram

![Intro](https://i.imgur.com/FdMXkhy.png)

#### Choosing your size

![choose a size](https://i.imgur.com/j7F7x64.png)

#### The main site

![screenshot of characterGenerator4000.com](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/07sk3cdfh8vsxm65ojnw.png)

#### Images to Characters

![Images to Characters](https://i.imgur.com/Sn0kYjw.png)


#### Fancy new counter

I'm super proud of this thing, it took way longer than I expected but honestly super happy with the final result.

![Newly added counter](https://i.imgur.com/LKQZ7p4.gif)

#### Some of the first characters generated

![some characters that we generated](https://i.imgur.com/pOfAWJ6.png)

## Things Coming

- profile
 - ability to save "Projects"
 - ability for larger amount of images to be uploaded
 - recall to previously built image
- animated characters
- tutorial videos
- automated minting for nft (rarible, direct to ethereum?)
- automated sharing of images to social media
- lots more!

## Things I've learned

- I am not great at marketing
- I work quicker when I have a visual to look at. 
- I built a working prototype as we needed it. This showed me its value.
- I designed the original layout without perfecting it, this gave me a vision to following.
- I coded to the visual which made it very simple to code a full working site, quickly.
- I fixed things and added features as I used the tool.
- I went out of my comfort zone to share my project with others. 
- I had a name idea (originally CharacterCreator5000) but changed it on the fly and didn't invest a whole lot of heart in to the name... I let the app and work flow determine the name. I got the domains I wanted for it. CG4000.com and CharacterGenerator4000.com
- It's ok to just do projects for fun, not over think it or even have a full final idea of where it'll go.
- Community is IMPORTANT! 


Thanks for letting me share. Please feel free to leave comments on what you like, what you don't like, what you would want to see or do different. 

Please share my project with others and help me grow some traffic. I appreciate it! Share your projects and I'll check them out and share them as well! 


Thanks for reading! 

-DeChamp