I splurged on a iDraw H SE - A3/A2 earlier this year and have been coding / making birthday cards for friends and family all summer.

I feel like I get asked a lot the same questions and I think this article describes it best. Like yes I could have just upgraded to a nicer printer, but there is something fun about the process of getting an artwork plotted that makes it fun for me.

I need to upload some of my plots to share.

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On a similar note for others who want to get into this, there was a thread awhile back on "What is the 90% activity in your favorite hobby", for example sanding taking 90% of the time for woodworking. For pen plotting the 90-95% is the art side. Taking images, converting them into g-code either via SVG or other processes, or writing code to make generative art, that is the 90%.

At the end of the day the pen plotting itself at the surface level is a projection of the effort taken to generate the art. Where it gets really exciting is the capabilities and unique aspect of the medium (like touching on white ink or watercolor) that create truly unique ways of presenting the art.

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Some related subreddits:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PlotterArt/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PenPlotters/

If sanding took even 10% of my time I'd give up the hobby. Fortunately my girlfriend loves that kind of mindless work and does all the finishing that's more than "slap some BLO on it and call it good."