The Turtletastic project began with my desire to learn a new programming language. Even though I work in IT, I have not looked at a piece of code for many years, and the kind of languages I previously worked in – COBOL, REXX, VB6 – felt a little dated.
I chose Python. It seemed to be everywhere, looked fairly familiar in syntax and structure, and had lots of good learning resources freely available online.
Next, I needed a project.
After reading an article on the BBC news website about a kid who learned to code during lockdown and generated thousands of whale pictures, I thought, “I can do that.”
So I started.
I began researching NFTs and quickly saw that many of the huge collections on sites like Opensea were generated using the same node.js package. I didn’t want to follow this route. Instead, I wanted to write a program for myself that achieved that same result.
It’s easy and very efficient to copy code that has already been developed – why reinvent the wheel – but I think it’s more fun to create things from scratch.
First, I had to learn about file formats and how to create files programmatically. Next, I had to find a way to store picture data in a way that I could use it in my program. Then, I had to work out how to apply different layers to an image to allow for the various combination of traits.
Finally I had to draw some pictures.
My drawing skills have never been ‘fine art’. I’m more in the comical doodle zone. This, combined with my love of the old 8/16 bit games I played in my youth (the origin of my gamer name, Slapmongous), lead me to draw 8 bit style images.
As for my choice of turtles – I like turtles 🙂
I also like squirrels. Watch this space for some squirrels heading your way soon…
Properties
To give a good selection of turtles to choose from I added some properties that I have listed below. The combination of properties make each turtle unique.
- Shell Colour
- Body Colour
- Face
- Hat
- Footwear
- Upgrade
- List Item
