I am off tomorrow on a multi-state road trip to visit friends and relations. I will bring my Botaram-creation laptop with me and I plan to continue the story while on the road, but there is a chance that I will have to fall back on filler art here and there. One way or the other, the distant spire draws closer and this strange tale will persist to its end. Thanks for reading!
Category: Artwork
Art peripheral to the story.
A Newer Machine
The computer on which I am presently composing Botaram is an Asus laptop that was new circa 2016. It is a great little computer and I have been keeping it running one way or another, but it is starting to show signs of its age. Thus, it’s prudent for me to make sure that I have more than one system with the tools I need to create the artwork.
At the same time, I would like to get off the Windows bus before the descent into 11 begins in earnest. Thus I have secured a gently used desktop PC and am in the process of preparing it for its new role as my daily art computer.
A key issue is whether I can get Illustrator working under Linux Mint. Adobe is a Linux-unfriendly company and does not make it a trivial task for its software to function under a Windows emulator. My attempts to get it running are going slowly.
A more flexible alternative is to switch from Illustrator to Inkscape, an open source vector drawing tool. I explored a move to Inkscape when restarting the story back in 2024, but at the time I was not successful in importing my working files into it and I decided that it was more important to get the story moving again with the tools that I knew.
Recently, I tried again and after fiddling with some artboard settings I was able to see rendered Botaram pages in Inkscape. I still have some distance to go before I can produce new pages and remaster old pages in this tool, but it’s a promising start.
Meanwhile, my old laptop with its older copy of Illustrator lurches onward…
New Resolution
And so we begin again.
Up until now, the new work I’ve done on the comic has been in the past, restoring and upgrading what already existed. Even when creating new art, it has been to replace written story entries that technically had already been done.
With the last two pages, I now resume with moving the story forward. They are the first truly new Botaram material in over ten years.
I am back, and my resolution is to continue this tale to its strange conclusion. Thank you for reading, and for long time readers, thank you for your patience.
Reboot Report
There’s been a lot going on since my last blog post, most of it positive.
I have established a routine for the “Remastering.” Alternate open fonts have been selected and as I repost older strips I am outputting them at higher resolution. I also committed to regenerating an older strip at the same time that I repost a newer one, so that the remastery would proceed slowly at both ends of the story. (This bogged down at strip 22 for technical reasons, but I hope to resume it soon.) I am also taking the opportunity to correct old mistakes and try to put the earlier strips into a better arrangement for being published in print format.
After several experiments, I decided not to move to SVG, but to use PNG and upgrade the resolution to 1200 pixels across. This shows as 800 in the site layout but you can see the full resolution by opening the image in a new tab. I am also adding transcripts to each comic. These are for general accessibility, but if you are confused by what I was getting at in any strip in particular, the transcript may also offer clues to what I was thinking. : )
I mentioned three projects that I needed to accomplish to get the story back on track. The first one was to complete the Kollen set artwork so I could rework a significant section of the story; this is now done. The next project is the completion of the Station set where Aun and Chax are going next. The third is for an upcoming destination that will be revealed later.
About twelve years ago, I had run into some trouble in producing the story graphically and I got around this by writing a number of text entries. This did keep things going but I always regarded these entries as a hack that I needed to update and correct. All the text entries are now converted into proper comic pages and the story is now ready for me to continue it from the point where I left off.
To do this without losing the old comment history, I wound up inserting and integrating the new pages with the older pages by using older timestamps on the new material. This has the side effect of making it seem that the comic is not currently updating, but I am almost at the end of the interwoven old and new material that I have to repost and this issue will soon be resolved.
This is where I stand on the cusp of a new year. To new readers, welcome, and to old readers returning, I’m really pleased to see you again. I wish you all the best. I am ready now to tell this tale until its end.
Weathering On
Dealing with Florida weather, I am safe and well. I am at work on the next entry and should have it done shortly. Thanks for your patience!
