The Indie Web

The best of PlotterTwitter, February 2020.

February has come and gone, and since it’s a leap year, 29 days have gone with it. Twenty-nine wonderful days of my favorite Twitter hashtag, #PlotterTwitter.

As with January, here’s another round-up of amazing artists & pen plottings, alongside any other commentary/algorithm I can spot within the works!

Straversi printed off an elevation map of SF in brilliant detail, using this fantastic open source tool that was built on top of Mapbox.

Joseph Wilk is doing some amazing work, hooking the axidraw up to an airbrush. With liquid ink, the outcome is intricate and super random.

More Please!

Create your own art by tinkering with this machine's wacky controls.

A lot of generative artists show off their creations with some clever curation tools that allow you to make small adjustments. This project is a great expansion on that idea.

Tinkersynth is a generative art machine, in the literal sense, modeled after a synth. With the artwork on the left and a set of special tools on the right, you can tweak each slider to change different aspects of the art.

Tinkersynth encourages you to play with it and discover how each of the tools works—just like how you might learn how to use an actual synth for the first time. Each icon means something different, and you’ll need to play with each and every one before you feel ready to leave the page.

In the words of the creator, Joshua Comeau:

Tinkersynth prioritizes being delighted by unexpected effects rather than creating an intuitive, predictable tool.

If the joy of creating artwork isn’t enough, Tinkersynth is full of secrets and easter eggs that will keep you exploring. Each of the sliders and inputs is a delight to use. They all obey the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

More about the artworks and code

The best of PlotterTwitter, January 2020.

Well, January is almost over and it’s time for a recap of one of my favorite Twitter hashtags: #PlotterTwitter.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with #PlotterTwitter, it’s a place for people to show off their plotter art. It has become an incredibly creative space with everyone able to see each other work and expand upon it.

And so here we are, a little recap of some of the best works in January’s #PlotterTwitter!

Netpraxis created some very nice designs using moiré patterns which are complex patterns that emerge by overlaying two simple patterns on top of each other. They can look endlessly complex and simple at the same time.

Julien Gachadoat created some super clean, mechanical-esque plots. I haven’t really seen anything like it.

Showing that you can find inspiration anywhere, Ruud de Rooij plotted out every single way to cross a road 7 times without crossing over your path.

Tyler Hobbs used a plotter to draw outlines of circles, and then painted the colors in by hand.

Louis Hoebregts recreated some Keith Haring works with a creative grid of swirls.

Yuin Chien plotted out 2D renderings of folded paper based on origami diagrams. With beautiful colored markers on black paper, they truly pop out of the page.

More! Give me more!