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So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

A common source of confusion that I experience when posting my artwork on social media is: _why?_ Why use a plotter when you could use a printer? It's slower. Less exact. More expensive. It fails, far too often. Inkjet printers became ubiquitous in the 1980s because they solved nearly all of these problems. So why are artists obsessed with pen plotters?

Printers(we'll focus on inkjet for this article) blast tiny ink particles into paper and can seamlessly mix them to create a range of visually distinct hues and tones. Downward pressure is an essential consideration for achieving dark lines with pencils, and the newer Bantam Tools machines have this solved with springs that exert proper force. I'm looking for how the work feels when I see it, and I'm also making sure that it doesn't hit material limitations, like ripping through a sheet of paper because a pen glides over the same point too many times.

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