What this is
Ink Weight writes a picture in characters. Every cell of the picture gets one glyph, chosen by how much ink it carries: a dense kanji like 鬱 where the picture is bright, a light one like 一 or ノ where it is dim, and nothing where it is dark. The glyphs come from words you choose, so a crow can be written in 烏 鳥 羽 翼 夜, and the tool measures the ink of each glyph itself. It writes in kanji, Devanagari, Tamil, Latin letters or symbols, or in any words you type. Play sets it moving in one of four ways, Write, Gather, Rain or Breathe, and Record video saves one 5 or 10 second take.
How to use it
- Drop a picture, or try the sample.
- Pick the words it is made of, or type your own in any script.
- Set the tone, the columns and the ink, then save a PNG, an SVG, the text or a video.
Read the guide
Words: ink weight · kanji · tategaki · glyph coverage · font fallback
Common questions
Why are some of my characters dropped?
A character the font cannot draw, which would show as an empty box (tofu), or a colour emoji carries no ink the tool can measure, so it is dropped. With fewer than three different characters left, the Crow words are used and the line under Words says so. If the device has no font for the script you picked, the line names the script and the Crow words are used.
What does vertical writing change?
The columns run top to bottom, and the columns run right to left, as Japanese is written by hand (tategaki). The .txt has one line per column, the rightmost first, and the SVG keeps the same order.
Can I save it on a clear background?
Yes. Turn on Clear paper: the PNG and the SVG have no paper behind the characters. The checks in the frame only show you where it is clear.
What is the gold character?
The spark: the one brightest cell, drawn with Spark glyph in Spark colour. Turn Spark off to leave it out.