Plotservice
Make your creative design come alive with our vintage pen plotters
You craft it and we'll draft it
Plotservice in short:
Our plotservice lets customers hand over a digital design — whether it’s a poster, greeting‑card, architectural schematic or a custom artwork — and we turn it into a high‑quality, pen‑drawn artwork using our best vintage pen plotters (HP, Roland DG, Sekonic, etc.).
Together, we will transform your design into an engaging and rewarding project as we collaboratively develop something that holds significant meaning and value for you.
We will guide you through the journey to realise your vision.
Imagine the time saved when using this service.
- No need to find, buy, repair, calibrate and maintain expensive or vintage plotters.
- We already own and maintain a fleet of calibrated, capable, vintage machines.
- We know each model’s idiosyncrasies and possibilities as well.
- We keep inks, pens and media stocked and tuned, ready for instant pen plotting.
- No hustling around with outdated software, drivers, etcetera.
Please review the FAQs below or contact us for further information.
Why choose Pen Plot Studio
- Huge timesaver – Create > Submit > Receive
- Vintage quality with modern reliability – Our vintage pen plotters produce line‑art that no laser printer can mimic.
- One‑stop shop – From vector conversion to final packaging, we handle the entire workflow.
- Scalable – Small runs of 1 poster or bulk orders of 100s are priced transparently.
- Creative freedom – We accept that you as an artist want to keep creative control.
- Eco‑friendly – No toners or large‑format inks; we use recyclable pens, low‑waste consumables, where we can.
- See Your Design Come to Life – Live! – Every order gets its own short, behind‑the‑scenes video that captures the pen’s graceful glide across the paper, creating your masterpiece. * Feel free to share.
Pricing
The prices quoted in the products below are for regular plots only and may differ for very complicated designs. Ask for details.
Please contact us if you have special requests or need a quotation.
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FAQ // General
What is Pen Plotting?
Pen plotting technology is a unique printing method that employs a mechanical arm to accurately draw designs on various media, such as big size paper or fabric. This technology is often used for creating intricate and detailed artworks nowadays, where in the nineties it was mostly used in PCB and electronic schematic design and Architectural/CAD design businesses.
What is a Pen Plotter?
A pen plotter is a specialized computer controlled printing device that uses a pen to draw very precise, high-quality graphics on paper.
You can compare it to a modern 3D printer, but it uses the Z-axis only to lift the pen up from the paper.
We have plotters where the paper is static on the bed and where the arm moves in X and Y direction. We also have plotters that pull the paper back and forth and where the arm only moves in one direction.
There is also a kind that can freely travel, like the Pen Mouse. These are fun, but we don’t use this for serious business.
Why don't you use inktjet plotters?
Modern inktjet plotters are pretty fast, use ink cartridges and produce photo quality prints. They are all around us and some versions are even found in homes. We like the old vintage plotters, because they challenge us. They are not easy to operate, often break and require care and attention. Watching the pen slowly working to the endresult is above all very pleasing and satisfying to watch.
Which plotters do you use?
We have a bunch of them in working and none working condition. We dedicated a page on them here.
Do you sell plotters?
Vintage plotters are not easy to find secondhand anymore. We have bought some plotters that were stored in moist environments and needed lot’s of maintenance and repairs. The costs are often much higher than the profit. So not at the moment, but maybe some day when commercially feasable.
What kind of pens do you use?
For black and white, we use new old stock disposable or refillable Rapidoplot or Koh-i-Noor plotter pens. They are quite similar to Rotring technical drawing pens.
For color we use various pens, felt tip, to ink pens, whatever fits the plotter. (speed, pressure, size)
How long does it take to create a plot?
Designing or creating code various depending on complexity. The plotting process itself can take anywhere between 30 minutes for small plots to even 5 hours for A1 plots. This is depending on pen travel distance, complexity and maximum usable drawing speed.
FAQ // Plot Service
What files do I deliver?
After a purchase is made, I’ll email you and we’ll figure out what suits your situation best.
The most common file formats used for designing images for pen plotter output are vector-based formats like SVG, DXF and EPS. These file types maintain the scalability and precision of the original design, ensuring high-quality output on the pen plotter. Each valid path in the vector file will be drawn by the plotter.
If you are not known to vector files we can vectorize the photo or drawing for you at a reasonable fee. It’ll probably require a little back and forth before we can proceed to the plotting phase.
What software to use best?
We recommend starting with DrawingBot. This is a really fun image processing tool that can convert your image to a pen plotter suitable design.
From there on you can use a graphics editor. For Mac and Windows users, the easiest software to work with these file formats is Inkscape, a free and open-source vector graphics editor. Inkscape provides a user-friendly interface and robust tools for creating and manipulating vector-based designs, making it an excellent choice for preparing files for pen plotter output.
We don’t like the UX / user experience and bugs too much and we prefer a more professional tool that can export to SVG, Like Pixelmator Pro, Sketch or Blender. On Windows that might be CorelDRAW for example.
But you can use your preferred graphics editor that can export to SVG to your liking of course.
Are there handy online tools?
Yes, check out some of these on beardicus’ list.
* Be sure to have a look at Turtletoy.
Do I need to optimise the SVG for pen plotting?
Not necessarily. We will check the file and optimise for our plotter of choice anyway.
But it is important to keep in mind that the plotter draws lines and dots. It cannot make photographic images like a modern printer. Adjust your design accordingly.
Avoid using (color)filled objects! It’s best to hatch-fill these. This applies to (non-single-lined) fonts as well.
Filled object can be plotted with felt tip markers, but with very small tipped technical pens this is difficult to manage.
What fonts can I use?
You can use any font you like, but it wil probably be outlined and not opaque. You can check out the Hershey fonts, that are vector fonts created specifically for plotting.
Or you can use special single-line fonts.
How many colours can I use?
This is where it gets really fun and interesting and what makes pen plotting a really creative endeavour.
Because of the pen limitation you have to think in these constraints. Our biggest plotter can hold up to 8 different coloured pens. Theoretically you can pause the plot, change pens and proceed, but this is very laborious and error prone.
Therefore, think about using white-space between lines to suggest colour differences and make this attractive in different ways. A good way to experiment with this is with the great image processing tool DrawingBot.
When is my plot ready?
That is not easy to answer. You better contact us on beforehand if you are in a hurry, because it depends on many things, like:
- your design / complexity / amount of work
- which pens and media you want us to use
- which plotters are operational (check status)
- how busy we are
- delivery / shipping (we ship from the EU (The Netherlands), customs might take a while too)
We aim for shipping within 5 days after purchase.
Do you plot everything we send you?
As long as it meets our healthy ethical standards and common sense, we will always accept your order. We are not oversensitive and do not suffer from a damaged amygdala, so we are cool. ITM
You won't publish our design/plots?
Your design is safe with us. If we want to boast about your designed plot, we’ll ask for your permission before publishing anything online or elsewhere.