Swiggle
Creature

This is corduroy-wrapped framed plot I called "Swiggle creature". The project developed over the course of the year and had many phases from the initial idea to the final framed version.

Plot Party prompts from Nov. 2023

#PlotParty2023

Over the past several year, I have enjoyed participating in several plotter card exchanges. This is where plotter enthusiasts sign up to create and send out postcards that they create using a pen plot. Dawson has several plotters available in our Makerspace and participating in this exchanges always pushes to me to try new thing and experiment with new techniques and ideas.

#PlotParty is one of the two main plotter card exchanges that I have taken part in over the last few years. (The other card exchange I've loved participating in is PTPX). The November 2023 PLOTPARTY included a variety of prompts that each participant was supposed to use as inspiration for their work.

These Swiggle Creatures plots were my design for the postcard exchange that was the final prompt. I made several versions of these plots to send out as postcards

How the Swiggle Creatures characters were created...

Around the time when I was working on PlotParty 2023, I was enjoying experimenting with ChatGPT plus / Dalle-3 to use prompts to create images based on text descriptions. The original prompt and ensuing conversation I had with ChatGPT to eventually land on this character is described below. Trying to actually get the image you are envisioning is definitely a challenge and isn't not a straightforward process.

Fuzzy creature made of scribble lines. Big expressive eyes with green iris

Use same seed but zoom out and make creature taller

This is great except I want two eyes like original image

The next phase of the conversation with ChatGPT plus / Dalle-3...

Amazing! Use this last image and seed to create four versions of this most recent image. Each image should feature a different set of accessories. #1 sunglasses and umbrella - red for beach. #2 spacesuit. #3 overalls and tool belt. #4 ready for a fashion show catwalk.

Tall fuzzy creature wearing sunglasses and holding a red umbrella, ready for a beach day.

Tall fuzzy creature dressed in a spacesuit, prepared for an interstellar adventure.

Tall fuzzy creature donning overalls and a tool belt, ready for some DIY tasks.

Tall fuzzy creature dressed in high-fashion attire, ready to strut down a fashion show catwalk.

Note - Each of these creatures is very different from the original images that were created. I tried to get ChatGPT to get back to the original style once these were created with this instruction "The concept of these four images are good but they don’t feature the same fuzzy creature from the last prompt. Recreate all four of these specific images with a consistent version of the original creature." Below are the updated images that it generated based on this request. The bottom right image was the version of these 4 that I decided to continue working on for the final plot...

Preparing to Plot: Illustrator and DrawingBot Software

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator - Used Image Trace to vectorize the ChatGPT generate image. Removed the background to simplify the plot later. Separated the layers into the creature and scarf. Exported each layer to bring into DrawingBot to prepare for plotting.

DrawingBot - Creature

DrawingBot - imported creature layer from Illustrator and used a single line curvy line algorithm to convert it to a stroke that could be plotted.

DrawingBot - Scarf

DrawingBot - imported the scarf layer separately to control the type of line to be plotted in a variety of colors and stroke types.

Corduroy wrapped frame

I wanted to create a frame that could be altered in the future based on the size of the artwork as well as other variables like the thickness of the wood being used, etc.

I created a variable driven CAD / CAM model in Fusion 360 to achieve this goal.

I can edit the dimensions in Fusion and it generates the new 3D model, the CAM toolpaths, and creates a sketch that can be exported as a DXF for laser cutting the fabric.

The final framed and corduroy wrapped plot of Swiggle Creature

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