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Comment by foxbarrington | Hacker News Reader

I just got an axidraw and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it. Because it can just use SVGs as is, I could plot a “still”[0] from one of my existing generative pieces[1] minutes after bringing it home.

What surprised me is how good some plots look and how “cheap” others come out. I’ve made a few that were fun to watch but the output isn’t nicer than a laser printer.

My current thinking is the more “exotic” the pen and paper is, the better.

[0] https://imgur.com/gallery/5t4lWRT

[1] https://david.app/projects/geo-clock

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Yep, I've been experimenting with metallic gel pens on black paper, the result is pretty nice:

https://imgur.com/a/rHHo5c9

The Uni-Ball Signo metallic gel pens have performed pretty well, but can drip on the corner when the piece is done and the arm returns to origin, so you'll want to pay attention to it:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7SC6SR

Love it, going to try them out. What paper do you use?

Here you go: https://a.co/d/3zuBvyW

Looks like its unavailable for me right now, but there are others you can try.

For white paper, this has worked very well for me: https://a.co/d/9qoDwML

Thanks! Was surprisingly hard to find something that looked good on Amazon. I'm thinking it has to be matte for the full effect. Probably worth checking out an art supply store.

Probably. Its definitely worth investing in good paper and pens for this hobby. There will be some experimentation tax built in too, I've bought pens that ended up being garbage but there's no way to know that until you try.

You need to run your SVGs through some path optimization! Your Axidraw is doing a lot of unnecessary traveling between lines. Check here: https://github.com/beardicus/awesome-plotters#vector-utiliti...

I know, I just didn't bother to do it for that piece since I actually wanted to film the jumping around of the arm as a demo for friends. I do it for other pieces I actually want to optimize using vpype.

Sakura Gelly Roll White pen is great as well.

> My current thinking is the more “exotic” the pen and paper is, the better.

Oh? What makes for 'exotic' materials - like the weight of the paper, cold-vs-hot pressed, and so on?

Right, the less it looks like printer ink and printer paper.

same conclusions from me, lean into what makes the tool different than a regular printer, lean into it's imperfection ( improper inkflow, misregistration if using more than one color/pass, ink bleed, how it reacts to a semi-rough surface ). It is also a very performative tool, I've seen some artists using them in that way as well. Using both cartesian and polar style hanging plotters on gallery wall or glass window. Also hanging polar style plotters as a very cost effective way to create very large works.

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