Last newsletter I’d started thrashing around with displaying the E1M1 map of DOOM as theoretically plottable vectors. Well, theoretical no more, I plotted a quick run through; then made this timelapse. I always plan on doing these properly, but just handheld this one, so some of the frames are out of focus, I’m going to say that’s part of the charm. It’s very jumpy and timelapsey!
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Each month over in Patreon-land I pick a theme for the monthly postcards/prints, last month’s was “handwriting” (more on that in a moment), and this month’s is going to be all about DOOM; animations, frames, maps, experiments and, yes, actually, finally, can you play DOOM on a drawing machine?
I have a hunch you can, at about 1 frame per 5 minutes, and I think it’ll take me around 7 hours - so snacks may be involved.
October’s theme post is here: https://www.patreon.com/revdancatt/posts/october-26-plans-171133295
And if you want some DOOM themed pen-plot postcards/A5 plots, or just to follow along then sign up for membership here: https://www.patreon.com/cw/revdancatt/membership
That feels a little self-promotiony to me, but I’ve been told repeatedly that you need to be subtle as a brick, over and over, because people quite often go “Oh, I didn’t know you had a Patreon/Newsletter/YouTube channel.”
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# YOUTUBE & VIDEOS
The handwriting from last month got its own full length video, with the slightly click-bate title “Forgery Machine”…
…because as much as I love carry-on-titles “Making a typewriter handwriting drawing machine with my own handwriting” just wasn’t going to do it, and “Forgery Machine” would probably reach a wider audience.
From a personal view, it was nice to make an actual video-video after spending most of 2026 shooting the Drawing Machine 101 tutorials. I decided I’d finally earned the right to make a video for myself.
As I’ve mentioned before, the point of the old weekly “Weeknotes” videos was to get used to using the equipment & software and talking in-front of the camera, ready for making the tutorials. The problem with Weeknotes videos is they were often slices across multiple ongoing projects; unless you were following along every week you never really go to properly see the full arc/conclusion of a project.
Last month was an experiment of taking the monthly Patreon project and recording (an aspect of) it as a video diary, and I think it kinda worked. So I’m going to do the same this month with the Doom postcards/project. I’ll record the whole thing start to end, postcards get sent out on the 21st, then I’ll wrap up the video and post it to YouTube shortly after that.
I’m also about to record the next few videos for Module 4 of the Drawing Machine 101 tutorials, which should be fun and also getting me closer to finishing them all sometime in 2027.
Here are some of the handwriting postcards that went out.
And I’ve been diving into making some more handwriting plots, both larger plots and more intense…
So one set of pen plotters in the studio are going to be exploring this whole thing, while “Penjamin” the plotter will be doing the DOOM stuff, phew!
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# PROFIT/LOSS
A long time ago, I used to publish monthly profit/loss reports for how my whole pen plotting “empire” was going. Because I thought it was both interesting to share how much I was spending on equipment, pens, paper and so on, and how little I was earning from selling plots - and I didn’t see anyone else doing it, and I figured it would be useful/interesting for others.
My main aim was to pay off the initial cost of the first pen plotter machine I bought, which after many months I finally did, bringing the grand overall profit to around £3.52. I was going to carry on but various other factors, including getting a job messed all that up and muddied the water around what was profit, loss, business expense and basically making things un-useful to share.
I kept my Shopify shop for a while but didn’t update it, or add any new stock, so a monthly profit/loss report was essentially…
Shopify: -£30
…until I shut it down.
BUT!
I bought a pack of Bic Cristal pens the other day for the very black writing plots above. I think they cost something like £4, I’ll have to double check, and I’m getting the shop (very slowly) set up again on my own server, so no monthly Shopify fees.
And, it’s the first of the month today.
So I thought, perhaps, maybe, I’ll start tracking expenses on pens/paper again from today, and “profit” from any pen plots sold, and start doing a monthly report. It won’t be much, and it definitely won’t cover the cost of all the drawing machines sitting in the studio.
Perhaps stating that I’m going to do that here will be some form of accountability that’ll get my arse into gear and sort the damn shop out?!?
If I do, the first profit/loss report for October will fall on the 12th November, in about three newsletters’ time.
# THE END
I think it’s been a while since I posted a studio view so here we go.
The last three months have been stressful, with a lot going on, mostly good, as in everything is very busy, satisfying and interesting; stressful in that the rewarding parts keep getting either pushed back or put “on hold”, which is frustrating, and the general source of the stress. I feel like I’ve been working non-stop and yet to reap the benefit.
Chatting to friends and other artist I get a sense that it’s a pretty common feeling at the moment, so sending as many positive vibes as I can out to you all.
Oh!
To wrap up the YouTube slow climb to 10k subs, a fairly arbitrary number, we hit it shortly after the last newsletter, well done to everyone, but mainly me! 😆
I’ve now picked a new totally arbitrary number 25k, which we should hit in 1,401 days/2nd Aug 2030, if I carry on at this rate - which I won’t, because this was driven by the “Forgery Machine” video - going back to the normal tutorial videos will plateau the fuck out of the daily rate.
Anyway, next newsletter will be with you on Thursday 15th October, 2026! Until then,
Love you all
Dan
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PS.
I haven’t watched this, ‘cause I don’t use Rhino or Grasshopper, “This video is an unedited recording of a live webinar, there will be pauses and breaks” and clocks in at just over four hours. But James is awesome, so I wanted to share it here.