The Artfkt collection library
Magnetic Matter
Pull an image into restless metal
Start with a picture and explore how it reads as a field of small structures. Keep its colors, choose a material color, or pause on a sculptural frame. One movable focus gives each construction a different response.
Included in the Artfkt desktop app. All collections, one desktop studio.
Four ways to organize an image
Iron Filings uses short separated rods. Magnetic Chains joins spheres into finite strands, leaving larger openings. Bead Skin gathers a denser sheet of spheres into an image. Ferrofluid Spikes keeps its valleys joined beneath raised peaks. Choose the construction for its form before changing the finish.
Let the source remain part of the result
Broad color regions remain useful when the construction becomes coarse. Small lettering and fine foliage may fragment or disappear behind raised structures. Set Scale on a held frame, then check the same frame at the size you intend to share. Material appearance changes color while transporting source coverage.
Build a loop around one response
Try a field crossing liquid peaks, or gather a bead sheet and let it spread again. Keep a frame where the source reads clearly. A closed field orbit is useful when the ending should meet the beginning. These artistic constructions do not simulate physical fluids or free particle collisions.
Effects in Magnetic Matter
4 effects to explore and combine.
Iron Filings
Short rounded rods carry the source colors, with small gaps and directional highlights exposing their construction.
Ferrofluid Spikes
A continuous surface forms tapered peaks around a field focus, carrying image colors across its slopes.
Magnetic Chains
Touching spherical links form finite curved chains, with open space between the strands.
Bead Skin
Rounded source-colored beads preserve the image while a local field lifts the sheet and Gather changes its spacing.
Creative applications
- Create image-based posters with metallic structure.
- Make open compositions from articulated bead chains.
- Build short loops around gathering, lifting or a passing field.
Starting workflow
- Choose a source with broad color areas and a recognizable shape.
- Begin with Bead Skin and adjust Scale until the subject remains clear.
- Bring Gather toward a complete image, then set Attraction and Lift for a readable local response.
- Compare a held frame before animating Field phase. Try Iron Filings on the same source to explore a different construction.
Make it part of your next composition.
Combine Magnetic Matter with other collections, images, and editable text in the Artfkt desktop app.