Great article. I’ve only ever came across plotters used for tech drawings cad cam archtecture but i hadnt considered them applied to artistic output. Well done makes me want one now.
NelsonMinar · 1h ago
I love plotter art and have dabbled a bit myself. The really fun part is how pen-on-paper is not completely reliable or a perfect line. You get a little texture if the pen skips. You can use watercolor pens that bleed. You can get crazy with something like Copic markers on Yupo paper so the whole thing stays wet and smears for minutes. It's part of the art.
This bit from the article made me laugh ruefully though: "it's as simple as buying some black paper and a white gel pen." You can get some beautiful effects with white ink on black paper but it is notoriously difficult to get looking good. White ink is tricky stuff. But that's part of the fun!
mattdesl · 3m ago
A lot of it comes down to which pens you happen to have - I’ve had some success with Sakura gelly rolls for white, and also more recently have been enjoying sharpie creative acrylic markers which has a moderately opaque white ink. I’ve also had some really frustrating experiences with some other pens and instruments!
LinuxAmbulance · 1h ago
I always thought of plotters as legacy tech, but considering the variety of marking tools you can attach to the head, I'm wondering if I should get one.
Does anyone know of an inexpensive plotter you can buy or build?
buffet_overflow · 53m ago
I made one for roughly $100 USD from an Arduino, steel rods, some stepper motors, and some 3D printed parts.
Having an existing 3d printer is a bit “draw the rest of the owl” for this, but being able to extend and modify a device like a pen plotter is pretty nice.
lobsterthief · 37m ago
You can also pick up used older printers (like the Ender 3) secondhand VERY cheap and convert them.
bdcravens · 1h ago
Cricuts (and similar cutters, and multi-mode tools like the Xtool M1 and Bambu Lab H2D) have pen attachments
exasperaited · 37m ago
Yes. But no geek should be getting a Cricut when the Silhouette machines exist and are not so locked down and cloud encumbered.
ETA: I guess a true maths geek nerd artist would probably want something more modular and larger anyway, but the Silhouette machines are varied, interesting, support a pretty well documented protocol (GPGL, a variant of/alternative to HPGL I think) and are supported in Inkscape and Python.
donatj · 2h ago
My dad worked for Control Data in the 1980s and talks about hiding designs in period characters on his schematics. Talks about how the plotters would get to the period, hang out for a while and then continue.
Is there actual plotter simulation software I could be using?
ziml77 · 1h ago
Printers using CMYK isn't strictly true, right? Aren't you able to choose the ink colors when getting prints professionally made?
azornathogron · 35m ago
I had a summer job working at a print software company and they had a large format printer with, if I remember correctly, 12 different ink colours. These weren't spot colours - though that's also an example of going outside CMYK - but meant the printer supported a very wide colour gamut and subtle colour grading.
Anyway, yes, professional printing can go beyond just CMYK in various ways.
cosiiine · 1h ago
You're correct, there are some more sophisticated processes used by specialty printers such as CcMmYK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CcMmYK_color_model). Something like this will use more inks and less halftones, giving better results in some cases.
Or are you referring to other printing methods, say for example silk screening? There, you would definitely select a specific ink to use. It just depends on what your goals are.
mcphage · 1h ago
Or they could be referring to Spot Color.
lotyrin · 1h ago
One of my favorites is spot gloss.
kayodelycaon · 38m ago
I have a Canon Pixma Pro 100 and it uses 8 different inks. The “Pro” really means professional. When used with the correct paper, it produces the same high quality prints as any professional service.
Looking at the artwork on my wall, there’s two big things that set prints apart from an original artwork. 1. Computer software doesn’t capture the imperfection of a physical medium. 2. Printers can’t reproduce the texture of layered colors.
ludicrousdispla · 1h ago
Yes, giclee printers typically have ten or more inks, and Risograph printers offer a wider but limited set of options.
jeffbee · 6m ago
"gicleé" is just a neologism that means "I will charge my customers more to recoup the capital cost of this large inkjet printer" and doesn't really have any inherent meaning as to the number of inks.
alt227 · 1h ago
At work we have CMYKW printers, which add an extra channel of white ink to the mix.
romellogoodman · 45m ago
Im on my second Bantam tools next draw and love it. Having made a similar transition from generative art to printmaking with a risograph and drawing with a pen plotter; I love the slow physical process of using them.
qwertytyyuu · 26m ago
For whit inks how about uv printers?
cluckindan · 23m ago
For plotters, just get a pen with UV ink. Is a UV printer something more fancy?
futurecat · 2h ago
As a plotter artist also, I'm super happy to see this article on HN.
This bit from the article made me laugh ruefully though: "it's as simple as buying some black paper and a white gel pen." You can get some beautiful effects with white ink on black paper but it is notoriously difficult to get looking good. White ink is tricky stuff. But that's part of the fun!
Does anyone know of an inexpensive plotter you can buy or build?
Having an existing 3d printer is a bit “draw the rest of the owl” for this, but being able to extend and modify a device like a pen plotter is pretty nice.
ETA: I guess a true maths geek nerd artist would probably want something more modular and larger anyway, but the Silhouette machines are varied, interesting, support a pretty well documented protocol (GPGL, a variant of/alternative to HPGL I think) and are supported in Inkscape and Python.
After rewatching that, I did a one-shot remake in p5js: https://g.co/gemini/share/b983a93e3ae2
Is there actual plotter simulation software I could be using?
Anyway, yes, professional printing can go beyond just CMYK in various ways.
Or are you referring to other printing methods, say for example silk screening? There, you would definitely select a specific ink to use. It just depends on what your goals are.
Looking at the artwork on my wall, there’s two big things that set prints apart from an original artwork. 1. Computer software doesn’t capture the imperfection of a physical medium. 2. Printers can’t reproduce the texture of layered colors.