I have gone around and around with different firmwares and controllers (Grbl, Makelangelo, Gocupi, PenPlotter) and etc to try. I keep coming back to Polargraph firmware w/ send.py as the best solution for me.

I like the some of the artistic outputs from the controller and the line chaos of D2S but I really want to do tighter line drawings with shading which the controller doesn't do so well and D2S tends to have random lines drawn across otherwise clean lines. SVGs get reduced to stroke only which sometimes is okay but again for the images I want to draw I need the fill for contrast and shading. Which gets me to where I am at.

I have been experimenting with how to constrain D2S outputs and how to *trick* the controller to sort give me some constrained and tailored shading. Sort of what I want.

These three drawings show my progression.

I started with images like this cat to find which kind of images have the best chance of working for me. (black/white with all white backgrounds)

Then I did this Aztec warrior image I found and applied the shading constraints.

And this Macaroni Penguin is my latest attempt. The drawing was a coloring book image I found on the internet. I added the wording "macaroni" to the image and applied the fill/shading. Seems to have worked okay.

I was also playing with just fonts last night, but it was getting late so I didn't do any more drawings, but the results were looking good. I will try to post something on that tonight.

The process involves Inkscape,Gimp and then D2S. If there is interest in this and I find that the process is more or less repeatable with only minor tweaking from drawing to drawing I will write it up to share.

Until then...Cheers,

-Shorn

I really think that this drawing style is complementary to the native art styles in the Polargraph controller. There is this mechanical roughness to the drawings such that you can tell it was made by a machine, but would probably not guess that the pen is free floating. Might sound strange but I enjoy sitting with a beer or a glass of wine while watching the drawing taking shape under the pen. [Weird- I know]

This weekend I will try my hand at a more complex drawing. For now here is something a little more delicate. A poinsettia drawing.

I am using roller ball gel pens exclusively. The pen used here was a .7mm tip. I have used pens with tips from .3mm to 1.0mm. I seem to like the .7mm and 1.0mm the best. What I have found is that the larger tips act like a natural mechanical filter. When there are a bunch of lines on top of each other the larger pen tip has an averaging effect and provides some smoothing.

I did a simple google search for flowers and this is the original piece I downloaded.

I didn't change it much just found a way to have some shading where I wanted it and added the 'Poinsettia' art at the bottom.

For me this would not be possible without Sandy, Kong, D2S guy and the others who answered all the questions people asked. Thank-you.

And thank-you Sandy for making your firmware and controller open source. Not sure if you have a donation button but you should.

If you are reading and thinking about making your own or looking at one to buy support Sandy by purchasing one of his. I don't know him and have no ties otherwise (except for using his software) but the support here has been good from what I have seen and his machine bundles would be a great way to get started.

-Shorn (Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!)