I’m in a position where I think I need to break, or at least acutely bend, one of the rules I set for the comic. I am considering how to best do this in a way that lets me maintain my inner peace while not unduly delaying the story. I hope to have it worked out soon.
Meanwhile, I report that I have made additional progress on the plan to get my Botaram working files off of Illustrator and move them to Inkscape.
Pictured is a section of a Botaram working file rendered in Inkscape. The import is not perfect and much work would need to be done to import all of the production files (over 550) unless I can find a script to do the conversion. But this represents real and meaningful progress.
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…
In a bleak alien landscape, two creatures raised from birth to be each other's enemies decide to think instead. One seeks Botaram, a place of high ideals and austere beauty; the other seeks to protect Botaram from being defiled by creatures like the first. An uneasy truce is formed amid heartbreak and broken ties, and through the ashes of their world they search for a truth that may no longer exist, abandoning friends, honor, and perhaps their lives… or worse. > Read from the beginning
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