This has been a fun one - I was testing using more traditional pen plotter techniques (wiggly lines) to drive color instead of dwell time. It’s really interesting how it comes out, the way the anodizing affects neighboring lines create a bit of a natural averaging that makes the whole thing look ‘higher resolution’ than the same thing drawn with just ink. Here’s a closeup of the lines - pretty cool!

  • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    Can you tell is more about the process? A picture of the setup maybe? Is it a felt pen fed anodizing chemicals? What modulates the color intensity?

    • scribbler@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      Absolutely! So the metal is titanium, and the whole piece is submerged in a dilute electrolyte (baking soda is the MVP here). The entire plate gets charged up to 200V, then I use a pen plotter to bring my pen/cathode (ground) within a few hundred microns of the plate and let the current start flowing. At this point, everything affects the colors you get (temperature of bath, dwell time of cathode, conductivity of bath, spacing between my pen and the plate) because all of these factors affect how thick the anodized layer beneath the pen will be.

      The physics of what color you get from a given thickness of anodized material is pretty well characterized already, my shtick is being able to locally control the anodization to make pictures like I’ve been posting.

      Here’s a link to a terribly edited YouTube video I put up a few weeks ago on the process: https://youtu.be/xYB1iIjg5u0

      And I also have a crude website at https://www.tiprints.com/