Fractal Art Studio Directions

Fractal Art Studio Directions

Our Fractal Art Studio is a two-part art tool. On the first screen of the tool, you can choose between 20 fractal types to experiment with and cut shapes from. Some you can zoom in on, such as the Mandelbrot or Julia Set, and with other fractals, like L-Fern and L-Tree, you can change parameters. Most will give you a wide variety of regions. In each fractal option, you can choose a cut-out to select from a variety of shapes and even free-form ones.

You can either download the pieces you cut or send them to the second screen, where you can arrange them into a unique art piece. You can also draw over the shapes with art tools. When you are finished, you export the finished piece.

How our fractal studio is laid out

Open the Fractal Art Studio

Screen one, the Fractal Explorer. Pick a fractal, adjust it with the sliders, move around where the fractal allows it, then cut shapes out of the area you like. Every shape you cut lands in a tray at the bottom of the cutout toolbar and can also be exported as a PNG file.

Screen two, the Fractal Composer. Click Open Fractal Composer in the line just below the Explorer canvas to open it. Arrange the pieces, draw over them, and export. If you want more pieces, click Back to Fractal Explorer in the line under the Composer canvas.

Screen two does not open on its own to canvas work. You always reach it through screen one.

Part One: Fractal Explorer

Picking a fractal

Click on any tab in the bar along the top of the canvas to choose a fractal. There are 20 to choose from: Mandelbrot, Julia Set, Burning Ship, Newton, L-Fern, L-Tree, Koch, Dragon, Sierpiński, Barnsley, Hilbert, Lévy, C Coral, Seaweed, S-Carpet, Terrain, Coast, Clouds, DLA, and Romanesco. The last tab in the bar, Cutout, is the tool you use to cut out your shapes.

A control panel appears in the top right, named for whichever fractal you are on. Use the sliders to adjust its properties. Each fractal offers different controls. The Julia Set has seed values that reshape the whole figure. The escape time fractals, like Mandelbrot and Burning Ship, have iteration counts and color cycling, and these are the ones you can zoom.

Every fractal also has a palette row and a Reset View button. Reset View returns that fractal to its default framing and is the quickest way out of a view you have wandered too far into.

Moving around

Each fractal responds to the controls that suit its type, so what you can do changes as you move between tabs. Look at the bottom of the control panel: it lists the movement controls available for the fractal you are on.

Where zoom and pan apply, scroll to zoom in or out. Click and drag to pan. On a touch screen, pinch to zoom or double-tap to zoom in.

If a control seems to do nothing, check the hint line in the panel. That fractal probably draws itself centered and complete, with nothing to zoom into.

Using the Cutout tool

Click the Cutout tab at the end of the fractal bar. A yellow toolbar appears on the left side of the canvas.

Pick a shape tool: rectangle, ellipse, triangle, diamond, star, hexagon, polygon, or freehand.

Draw your selection on the fractal. For most shapes, click and drag. For polygon, click to place each vertex, then double-click to close the shape, or click near your first point. For freehand, draw the outline however you like.

Hold Shift while you drag to constrain the proportions, so rectangles become squares and ellipses become circles.

Use the Feather slider to soften the edges of the cutout. A little feathering helps pieces blend when you layer them later. No feathering gives you a hard cut edge.

When the selection looks right, click Add Piece. A preview opens so you can download that piece on its own if you want it. Closing the preview does not lose anything. The piece is already in the tray.

Shortcuts: R rectangle, E ellipse, T triangle, D diamond, S star, H hexagon, P polygon, F freehand. Escape cancels the selection you are drawing. Enter does the same thing as clicking Add Piece.

Stamp mode

Stamp mode turns your selection shape into a reusable cookie cutter.

Draw a selection shape, then click Stamp in the toolbar. Now, every click on the fractal cuts that same shape from wherever you click, and each click adds another piece to the tray. This is the fastest way to make multiple color variations of the same shape from different parts of the fractal.

Click Stamp again, or draw a new selection, to leave stamp mode.

Importing your own images

Click the PNG button in the cutout toolbar to bring your own image into the pieces tray alongside your cutouts. PNG, WEBP, and GIF all work. JPG does not, because a JPG has no transparency to cut around.

The pieces tray

Every cutout, stamp, and imported image collects in the tray at the bottom of the cutout toolbar. Click any item in the tray to download that piece by itself.

Moving to the Composer

When you have all the pieces you want to work with, click Open Fractal Composer in the line just under the canvas. The same line holds a link back to these directions, so you can reread a step without losing your place.

Part Two: Fractal Composer

The Composer is where you can assemble your shapes, paint over them, and export your final art.

What arrives on the canvas

The Pieces panel on the right shows how many pieces you have. When it reads Import PNGs to begin, the canvas is empty, and nothing has been added yet.

To add images from your computer, click Import PNG in the header bar. You can select several files at once.

Clear All Pieces, at the bottom of the Pieces panel, empties the canvas completely. There is no confirmation step.

Going back for more pieces

Click Back to Fractal Explorer, in the line under the Composer canvas, to return and cut more shapes. Click save before you leave so you do not lose you work.

Selecting and moving pieces

The Select tool, the four-way arrow at the top of the left sidebar, is active by default. The Piece Controls panel at the top right stays empty until you click something.

Click a piece to select it, then drag it where you want it. Hold Shift and click to add more pieces to the selection and drag them as a group.

Ctrl+A on Windows or Command+A on a Mac selects everything. Escape deselects.

Adjusting a piece

Select a piece, then use the controls in the right panel to change its rotation, scale, and opacity. Flip H and Flip V mirror it horizontally or vertically.

Duplicate makes a copy, which is useful when you want the same shape repeated at different sizes or angles.

Delete removes the selected piece, and so does the Delete key. Undo in the header bar brings it back, and Redo removes it again.

Layer order

Pieces stack in the order they appear in the list in the right panel. Pieces further down the list sit on top of the ones above them.

Clicking a piece to drag it brings it to the front, so the last piece you touched is the piece on top.

Drawing on top

Choose a drawing tool from the left sidebar: Ink Pen, Marker, Watercolor, Pencil, or Eraser. The header bar holds everything else you need while you draw. Pick a color from the swatch row, or click the rainbow button for a full color picker. Set Size for the width of the brush and Flow for how much color each stroke lays down.

Symmetry by default is set to Off. Switch it to 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x, or 12x, and every stroke mirrors around the center of the canvas, so one gesture becomes a mandala.

Undo and Redo in the header bar step back and forward through your work. The trash icon in the sidebar clears all your drawing marks and leaves the pieces untouched.

Your drawing lives on its own layer above the pieces, and it exports along with everything else.

Canvas settings

Canvas Settings sits in the right panel, below the Pieces list.

Use the preset buttons to resize the canvas: 1200×800, 800×1000, 1000×1000, or 1600×900. 

Snap to grid is off by default and set to 20px. Turn it on, and adjust the grid size slider when you want pieces to line up precisely.

Choose a background color from the grid, type a custom hex value in the color input, or pick one of the gradient presets: Cosmos, Aurora, Sunset, or Rainbow.

Saving and exporting

Export PNG downloads the full composition with the background included.

Transparent downloads the same composition with the background removed. This is useful if you want to layer your art over another piece of art.

Save project, in the sidebar, downloads a file that holds every piece position, rotation, scale, and opacity setting, plus your drawing marks. Load project brings it all back. Save your project before you close the tab, or before any step you are not sure about.