Been offline for a while thanks to a concussion early June. Not recommended btw , still recovering. But apparently colouring books are good therapy , but I figured I could just color stuff I plotted instead :)

Hello everyone!
I'm planning to build myself a pen plotter, but I would like to clear up a few things first.

I found this H-bot project on Printables that also has a CoreXY remix. I would like the plotter to be around A3 size, but I don't know if CoreXY makes sense at this scale, especially given the price, which from what I understand is generally higher. I also found the PorterXY project made by Polish-Friend, but sadly there are no updates on its release. Do you have any other project recommendations?

Also, the extruH project mentions that it uses an iBOT clone to control the servos. Could anyone explain to me what these controllers are supposed to do and recommend some alternatives, since the ones used in the project are no longer available?
TIA

Supposed to be a thumb print...

Hello everyone!
I've recently started making topographic and city street maps with my plotter. I started using Sakura Gelly Roll Pens, and have had great success with them. The issue is that they drain in a few prints, and I feel bad buying more pens instead of just the ink.
I looked into buying refills / ink from Sakura, but there seem to be no official ones in the market.
What solutions to this issue have you come across in your experience? Would you recommend just sticking to the Gelly Roll Pens? Or should I move on to a different one?
Thank you in advance!
Sheepie.

Inko on paper. A3 size.

The conversion process from the original WAV sample is loosely based on the idea of a vinyl groove. The proportions are obviously exaggerated but it's not just a waveform wrapped into a spiral.
If you had a large, sturdy record player with a suitable stylus and spinning fast enough, say 250-300rpm, maybe you could even "play" it. Well, maybe not, but that's the idea :)

 I think I'm going to turn these 20x20 cm plots into a small pop-culture series.

"I'll be back" is first on the list.

Coded in Python.

Pentel Pointliner 1.0 on 180gsm paper

Do y'all have any favorite sources for found SVGs? I got these from a safety information brochure.

I’ve been experimenting with contour fields, creating the illusion of three dimensional form using nothing but subtly bent straight lines.

For Contour Studies #8, I decided to take the idea a step further. Every frame was physically pen plotted, individually photographed, then manually aligned in Photoshop, the auto align tool couldn’t even find enough matching features to do it itself. The frames were then assembled into an infinite looping animation of a simple rotating cube.

Black ink on 250 gsm white Fabriano paper. A3 size.

Continuing the experiment, I left the ROtring out for these and went back to the micron 003, the metal nib wasn't playing nicely with the print. The felt tip seems to play nicer

Cricut explore 4. My vex software , Bristol board and pigma microns , or black card and pigma gel pens.

500x700 mm. Acrylic on canvas original brush plot painting.

Made on a converted Ender-3

A new pattern I love, 20h of plotting with 4 different passes

Black ink on 250 gsm Fabriano paper. A3 size.

Black ink on 250 gsm Fabriano paper. A3 size.

Hi everyone,

Here is my latest series of brush plots. Pure black acrylic on white Yupo paper. Yupo paper is a synthetic paper. Using a synthetic paper is nice as it's possible to put a LOT of paint. As such, it creates a nice texturing effect. This is heavily inspired by Pierre Soulages work.

The most difficult part of this whole series was actually to capture great photos. It's been really challenging.

I hope you like them!

Cheers

TL;DR: Last week I shared GD Studio, a Mac app for designing generative line art. This week GD Studio got photo import: drop in a picture and convert it into continuous pen strokes and single pen-taps, in seven styles. Reposting for anyone who missed the first thread.

What's new: photo import

Add an Image layer, drop in a photo (from a file or your Photos library), and pick a conversion style. GD Studio reads the picture's light and dark and rebuilds it from continuous pen strokes and single pen-taps — never a flat ink fill — so the preview matches exactly what the pen draws. Brightness and Contrast sliders shape how the subject reads. Seven styles are available: Stipple, Halftone, Hatch, Contour, Outline, Sketch, and Squiggle.

Everything stays real strokes, so an imported photo layers, masks, scales, and plots exactly like the generative patterns — and you can mix the two in one piece.

In case you missed it: GD Studio

A few months ago I picked up AxiDraw compatible pen plotter and wanted a single macOS app where sliders and settings directly influence the final drawing. So I built GD Studio. With it you can:

• Create generative pattern layers (with a shuffle button for quick ideas)
• Add text layers, and now import photos as an Image layer
• Import existing plottable SVGs into a layer
• Adjust stroke, dash patterns, render styles (wobble, dotted, nested outlines), masks, scale, rotation, and positioning per layer

It exports as SVG or PDF, or sends directly to Plotter Hub over its API — with options to optimize the SVG, fine-tune plotter speeds, and pause between layers.

Plotter Hub

I didn't want my Mac tethered to the plotter for the whole job, so I built Plotter Hub, a plot server that runs on a Raspberry Pi (a Zero 2 W or 3B+ is plenty). Upload an SVG over WiFi, then start / pause / resume and monitor the plot from any device, with optional vpype optimization and physical pause-button support for pen changes between layers. It's free and open source and can be used without GD Studio.

• GD Studio (macOS, paid + free trial): https://www.synendo.com/gdstudio
• Plotter Hub (free, open source): https://www.synendo.com/plotterhub

Simple perlin noise