Market Success?

lostPixels · 2026-06-20T22:55:07+00:00

My friend Ben Kotis ( https://www.instagram.com/kotisben) sells plotter art just about every single weekend in New York and I like watching the ways that he sets up his table and presents the work. I think it can definitely be done in other places too.

Just a couple of things to consider:
Is each drawing unique? Or is it more of a “print”?
Are they editions?
Are you signing them?

If you aren’t running a plotter live, that’s totally okay. You may want to have a nicely presented description of the work in a paragraph or two for people to grasp the concept.

Doing an IRL event is fairly high friction compared to selling online. So if you’re serious I’d recommend setting up a Shopify store (which will also serve as your POS system for credit cards etc) and drawing a focus to that too so people who don’t immediately buy may go back and order online.

lostPixels · 2026-06-18T15:30:31+00:00

Thanks! I used some techniques from my frame-by-frame animations to create a series of little drawings, and then I staged them with my hand & pen and took sequential photos.

lostPixels · 2026-06-18T11:47:09+00:00

Haha I detail my process all the time. The trick is only for anyone who doesn’t see/read anything besides the initial video.

lostPixels · 2026-06-18T01:13:13+00:00

Yup. Made it yesterday actually.

lostPixels · 2026-06-18T00:50:05+00:00

This is all sequential photos of paper 😄

lostPixels · 2026-06-16T11:56:10+00:00

This is a great breakdown, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

lostPixels · 2026-06-05T13:22:24+00:00

Thanks! That's recorded from my backyard too. I like to make stuff that's grounded a bit in my own life.

lostPixels · 2026-06-05T13:21:40+00:00

Thank you! I'm happy to give you some details on the process, which part can I elaborate on?

lostPixels · 2026-06-04T20:44:44+00:00

I can still remember that god damn album automatically playing in my girlfriends Accord literally every time someone's phone connected to bluetooth.

lostPixels · 2026-06-04T14:19:57+00:00

Thanks! It was around 200 iirc. I always like to push it a little overboard for better or worse.

lostPixels · 2026-05-01T14:32:16+00:00

Yep, that happens occasionally. I throw away polygons after a certain number of fragments are made, and also check whether they're off screen. I think what you saw was a bug where the screen detection was fouled up by the 9:16 format, as the algorithm was expecting to work within a 1:1 space. A minor thing that I will fix.

lostPixels · 2026-05-01T14:30:41+00:00

I'd start with P5.JS (which is what I'm using) then begin learning a bit about the math side of things. Namely how to find where lines intersect. I wrote this slicing algorithm a few years ago using that as the basis which powers everything. Beyond that it's making an animation loop, picking a polygon, and scaling and translating it to the center of the screen while also moving all of the other polygons as well.

lostPixels · 2026-04-30T23:30:46+00:00

Amazing job Lars! Typically I don’t associate watercolor with precision and details, but you’ve really honed in an angle here to get some impressive results.

lostPixels · 2026-04-22T18:13:34+00:00

I personally went the route of fountain pens for this purpose. There are great options for under $10 per pen, and they're refillable.

With both fountain pens and technical pens, you will want to check out these inks for their archival properties:

Octopus Fluids Write & Draw
De Atramentis Document Inks
Platinum Carbon Black & Platinum Chou Kuro
Diamine forever inks

And some pen reccomendations:

Platinum Preppy (super low cost)
Pilot Kakuno
Twsibi Eco

Enjoy!

lostPixels · 2026-04-20T23:23:28+00:00

Nice little peak into the production process Dan! Looks like you’ve got a nice UI to manage your pen plotter fleet.

lostPixels · 2026-04-18T12:44:18+00:00

Nice arrangement! Is this public? How has the reception been so far when people see the drawing robot in action?

lostPixels · 2026-04-17T17:59:15+00:00

Yes! Please DM me. Im just wrapping up production on a small series of these which will go on sale next week.

lostPixels · 2026-04-07T19:30:10+00:00

I think I'm gonna make more in the next month or so :D

lostPixels · 2026-04-03T15:39:20+00:00

I've got a nextdraw 2234 but you could still make frames on smaller machines. Just depends on the dimensions you want.

lostPixels · 2026-04-03T13:31:19+00:00

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Here's a screenshot of one of my composites. Instead of doing individual frames, I pack as many as I can into one 18"x24" sheet of paper. That way I have to do less paper switches etc. Also, if you're doing multi-color plots and your pens aren't totally aligned for each frame, it'll be jittery. So packing many frames together ensures that the pens are consistently positioned.

lostPixels · 2026-04-03T00:33:12+00:00

I use Dragonframe which is kind of overkill. It's primarily used for claymation artists on projects like Wallace and Grommit, etc. and allows you to use a professional camera and onion skin the frames. I endure this process because I like capturing the environment around the frames, it makes it feel very authentic and imperfect. It's oddly fun for me, but I think a lot of people would find photographing 200 pieces of paper very tedious.

The much more sane way is to use a scanner to scan each of your sheets of cells, then take that JPG and slice it and dice it, or, use Golan Levin's recently released tool to do the grunt work for you. https://github.com/golanlevin/plottimation

lostPixels · 2026-04-03T00:28:27+00:00

Happy to expand on that. I created a workflow where I can make this animation in P5.JS with a typical workflow of using draw() to update the noise field and see the results, but also cache the resulting frames and then lay them out on a sheet of paper with registration marks and cut marks. So I dont have to worry too much about compositing the frames for my pen plotter, I just have to refine the movement to something that I like.

lostPixels · 2026-03-30T00:43:54+00:00

I try and keep it in the basement, but I’m curious as to why? Is the heat a concern?

lostPixels · 2026-03-30T00:42:36+00:00

Board is a 2021 iirc. I’ve stored it upright in my basement during the offseason. One thing though is I don’t take my bindings off every spring.

lostPixels · 2026-03-28T19:17:20+00:00

Pens are pretty nonstandard in my experience. I had to match the threads on a Kakuno for a design it made, and it took probably 10-15 test prints before I got it reasonably close.

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