Travel Journal: Southern England, 2013

England: Expansive countryside and small towns steeped in history
(View overlooking Avbury)

Sunday, 12/15/13

The beginning of my journey to England felt more like a surprise than countless less-important events I’ve spent hours planning for. Working hard from 8-5 daily, pulled thinly across dozens of small projects from 5pm-11 or later, I hardly noticed as the trip I’d known about for months and dreamed about for years was happening! I half-heartedly packed the night before, finished packing the day of, and was suddenly at the airport with my girlfriend Kaitlin, and her brothers Avery and Keegan at 1pm. In a flash we were in Atlanta, purchasing extremely expensive food ($9 burrito?!), exchanging dollars for pounds (the currency), and getting on the plane for London by around 4:30pm.

The flight was uncomfortable and memorable for all the wrong reasons. We tried to sleep during the flight but general discomfort prevented me from getting more than a few minutes in. I watched Despicable Me 2 (Thanks for the recommendation Sergey!), RIPD (basically MIB 4), and Kick Ass 2 in sync with Kaitlin for most of the 8 hour flight, until at last I thought sheer exhaustion would help me sleep… But the moment I fell asleep someone who will remain nameless woke me up to inform me that I needed to buckle up while the flight was in motion. I was not surprised to see Keegan, Kaitlin, and Avery also having an equally difficult time falling asleep as the people in front of them decided to lean back just enough to be a nuisance. There were small amenities on the flight, like two meals, but flying with Korean Air has spoiled me.

When we landed and got off the airplane in London (now 6:15am on Monday) the hallways we walked through immediately reminded me of an ethnically diverse Death Star corridor. Basically picture women in burkas, Indian men, and the occasional Caucasian British family trudging silently through long windowless white hallways complete with warnings of “CCTV” (the government actually monitors the daily activities of England through 100,000’s of cameras!), posters of people with fancy titles welcoming us to London (like the "Beefeater”), and giant circular discs overhead that dampened sound. It took us about an hour to get through the checkpoints and by 7:30 we were with Keegan, Kaitlin, and Avery’s father in the parking lot, heading towards our home for the next two weeks, somewhere south of London. It only took me moments to catch my first glimpse of the local wildlife.

The elusive London Pigeon

As the sun lazily rose higher and higher, the sleep deprivation started to leave us; I was able to form complete sentences again and make observations on our environment. The first bit, the really disorienting part, was the fact that we were driving on the opposite side of the road than I’m used to. Other changes I did not expect to see were the plethora  of lights at each intersection indicating which lanes can operate, the number of roundabouts, the fact that lights turn red to yellow to green to let you know you’re about to move, the smaller size of the cars and trucks in England compared to the US, the fact that gas is measured in pounds per liter (as opposed to dollars per gallon), that red phone booths still exist, that the red post office boxes featured in Mr. Bean exist, that police boxes still exist, that restrooms are called toilets, light switches face the opposite direction to indicate being on and off, there are switches to turn power outlets on and off, and the spelling on just about everything is a letter or two different than how it’d be in the states. The buildings we passed were a fair mix of very modern, 20-50 years old, or incredibly old by American standards (150+yrs). There were also lots of random patches of forest and grazing land for sheep or horses that are dominant throughout the areas of the country we visited throughout our journey.

First impressions of England

When we arrived in Camberley roughly an hour later, checked in, and took naps for a few hours. It took me about 20 minutes after the nap to regain control over my cognitive functions again, and we decided to go for a walk in the woods nearby. It was beautiful but very cold. I think it was around 1 or 2pm but the sun was far obscured behind the clouds and not offering much more light than a stormy day in Florida. I quickly learned over the next few days that the sun in England never gets very high in the sky, or very bright, and it sets by about 3:30pm in December, giving the constant illusion of the hours before sunset, or a perpetually rainy day. Still, it was a very beautiful walk through a forest of brightly colored leaves. We passed a few statues, cannons of historical significance, the royal academy, and returned in under an hour for some tea.

Walk in the woods near Camberley

The rest of the evening was relaxed. We walked into town, walked around town, and had dinner with a drink at a pub called The Carpenter’s Arms. The downtown areas we walked through (and subsequent mall) were really pleasant because of the prominence of unique shops, as opposed to corporate chains. That made a lot of the downtown area I'd normally have avoided worth walking through. For instance, they had a gaming store that was selling the new God of War for 4 pounds! For someone who’s grown accustomed to their “local branch” of Gamestop (generally identical to every other branch) this is kind of a weird that they’d sell a used AAA title for anything less than $20-$50, despite being used. Heck, a used copy of the new Batman game was 20 pounds (easily $40-$50 at Gamestop)!  I felt like I was actually getting a good deal here… Good prices weren't limited to video games though as the clothing stores offered 5 pound belts. The rest of the evening was spent walking by one-off restaurants and other specialty stores like the “Holiday Card” store we passed! We went to sleep early that night because we had big plans for the following day.

Both pictures above taken within a mile of each other

The next day we woke up early to drive to Avbury and Silbury Hill. It took us two or so hours of driving through the beautiful English countryside (which actually looks nothing like southern California, despite what Austin Powers would have you believe) to reach our first stop, a pub called “Who’d A Thought It” in Wadworth. The pub was bought by a couple a few years ago and in addition to friendly service their food was phenomenal. They were generous in food portions, vegan-friendly when asked, and had an active fireplace in the room that kept us warm! I’ve never had pomegranate seeds added to a SIDE before, and really I can’t stress how good everything tasted, even the chips (what we call French Fries in the US)!

The Who'd a Thought It,
Great food! Great times!

Silbury Hill

Awhile later we visited the mole-hills and sheep that guard Silbury Hill. Silbury Hill, which many dismiss as simply a giant mound of dirt, was the largest man-made structure in all of Europe until the Industrial Revolution, which is really interesting when you learn that it was made well before the Bronze Age! It took over 2 million man-hours to make and was constructed in about 2 years. Think about that for a moment. Some people who predate the inventions of the shovel and bucket made a 25 acre wide mountain!  No one really knows the reasons behind why they made it but a number of hippies and new-age folk believe it has something to do with aliens. I’d personally like to believe, due to its close proximity of other burial mounds, that it has something to do with a deceased leader who was so amazing that they built it in his or her honor… But to date they’re never really found anything under Silbury Hill except the remains of other people (and a horse) that were buried there long after it was built.

Stones at Avbury...

Are kind of close to the road in places

The stones were brought here from hundreds of miles away...
without the invention of the wheel!

The Avbury Stone Circles are historically similar to Silbury Hill in that they are massive feats of the pre-bronze age man. Hundreds of giant boulders, each about 10’ in height, were dragged miles away from their origin to be arranged into a series of circles at Avbury. There’s also a giant 20’+ deep by ~1 mile diameter, man-made ditch that surrounds the site, which was made before the boulders were brought there. Many of the boulders were destroyed by the Romans to end pagan rituals (through a process of heating them up and pouring cold water on them, causing them to shatter), but it’s been restored within the last 150 years to have dragon’s teeth-like stones added to mark where the stones that were destroyed would have been. Again, many attribute the man-made work to aliens, or druids, but after looking through extensive research on the topic it seems highly unlikely and unnecessary to involve the interstellar in its construction, or a people who lived long after it was built. When we arrived I was surprised to find that the small town that was built around/within the stone circles hundreds of years ago still existed as residentially populated structures. More surprisingly still was the close proximity to well-used roads that are literally mere feet from the stones! Though passing incredibly characterful trees and giant boulders arranged in ritualistic circles was exciting in person, there’s really not much more for me to describe beyond their historical significance. There was a church, a graveyard, a gift shop (where I made my first purchase in England and learned that Pounds are not PP), and the Avbury Mansion, with each room recently modified to resemble how it would have looked over the course of its many owners. I’d have more on that topic but the sun had already set by the time we reached the mansion and it was closed.

The church at Avbury... Located just past the gift shop

After visiting both sites we went back home for dinner and watched an enjoyable movie on Netflix. The following day, for me, was a brief tour of Reading University, followed by dinner and catching up on work I’d fallen behind on.

Big Ben
Best use of my camera's Panoramic feature

The next day we woke up early and were prepared to depart for depart for London by 8:30am. We were slow leaving the house because someone forgot to shower (important on an hour-long train ride), and wound up taking the 9:30 train to London-Waterloo. We arrived at the Waterloo Station a bit before 11am, passed the Nelson Mandela statue (with hundreds of fresh flowers as he’d just died), and were suddenly overlooking one of the most breathtaking views I’ve ever seen, the London sky rise. We saw the Thames River, Big Ben, Parliament, statues of generals I’d learned about through Badassoftheweek.com, the Boudica statue, the London Dungeon (which we sadly didn’t have time to stop at), some huge churches, some very old buildings, countless pubs, China Town, the National Gallery, a giant blue rooster statue, the Cavalry Museum (guarded by the unmoving men in metal hats), and countless other things that are each worth of their own paragraph of description but that I simply can’t remember.

Boudica: One of the only people to burn down a city...
and have a statue of her likeness erected in that same city

Church with a Statue of George V

Parliament is MASSIVE

Lots of huge churches with detailed architecture

A Harry Potter-esque mark I discovered on a historical monument

Lion statues and a Giant Blue Rooster

The National Gallery

The Sherlock Holmes Pub

We stopped for lunch at the “West End's best known pub” Norman’s Coach and Horses, which had really great vegan/vegetarian food, and then went to the market. We saw the Apple store (which was built inside the shell of a much older building), and the various stalls that made up the marketplace. It was decorated for Christmas and an energetic 6 piece string band was performing stellar renditions of Mozart & the theme from Laurence of Arabia. Kaitlin, Keegan, and I backtracked to the National Gallery (which encourages donations but offers free admission), browsed the first floor, and caught up with everyone else. I don’t have much to comment on about the National Gallery, beyond that it was a beautiful building with many pieces of art I’d purchased in the game Assassin’s Creed 2 that I could recognize. We were planning to stop at the Sherlock Holmes Pub but it was at standing room only, so we instead opted to check out the stalls set up along the Thames River for Christmas and get ourselves German beer, hot dogs, and roasted chestnuts. We also picked up a few Rackham lithographs from a book salesman before heading back by train. It was long dark by this time, 5pm, and it felt like it was much later than it actually was.

The Christmas Village (picture taken earlier in the day)

When we returned home we watched some British TV (which is either really good, or really really bad depending on the show. There’s no middle ground here.), beat the game Papers, Please, and fell asleep pretty quickly. The next day was spent indoors catching up on work, finishing various projects, and briefly shopping in Camberley. This was the day I learned that no one in England accepts credit cards without an RFID chip. The day concluded with some Fallout (the original) and Munchkin, while eating German chocolates and homemade bread.

Downtown Reading

The following day we left by about noon-thirty and took a train to Reading to catch a football (soccer) game, Reading vs Wingham. It was a fairly cold and rainy day but the town of Reading was charming and did a good job of distracting us from how cold we were. We took a red double-decker bus and arrived at the stadium by about 2pm, an hour before the game. We hit up the “official gift shop”, the food court (which wasn’t too expensive), and found our seats (in the second row!). We watched the teams warm up while lazily nursing hot chocolate and tea, eating pizza and hot dogs, and by the time the game started it was still raining lightly like it had been for most of the day.

My first Football Match!

It was incredibly enjoyable to watch a professional football game. I could see during the practice how much control the players seemed to have over the ball in fair conditions, and as the weather worsened and rain fell in a sort of spiral pattern due to strong winds (hitting players and spectators from three or four directions at once), even these talented individuals had a difficult time directing the ball once it left the ground. I seem to enjoy soccer/football because it’s a continuous game, one that I personally enjoy playing, and because the rules are easy to follow. I also really enjoyed how energetic the crowd was with their chanting, yelling, booing, loud cursing, and general enthusiasm.

The weather turned on us...

Wingham won the game, and we quickly shuffled through the busy streets back to the bus. It was cold, windy, and raining. We spent a few more hours in the Reading downtown area picking up last minute Christmas gifts, exploring the mall, and trying to find a place to eat. We were declined admission to a pub because one of the large men outside insisted that “no Reading fans” would be admitted to pub that night (he’d seen an Official Reading scarf one of us had bought), and everywhere we walked seemed to be closing or unfairly expensive, like the 5 pound Five Guys Burgers and Fries burgers. While making purchases at the mall I almost avoided making a fool of myself with English coins, a talent I’d acquired the moment I had two coins that were the same color but of different value. We finally got burritos and took the train back home to play more Munchkin until the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday, 12/22/13

The next day was another work day for the most part, despite being a Sunday. I learned that purchasing goods before 10:30am on a Sunday is illegal in at least some parts of England, particularly where we were. We caught tea with old family friends in the early afternoon and went for a walk on a public footpath, the walk my host family used to take to get to school when they’d lived in England. It wound through some woods, a rugby field, and also bordered a few back yards. We passed some berries that one of us verified were poisonous, some mushrooms, and the old school, which everyone insisted had been bigger in years past. I took a moment to introspectively wonder when walking half a mile to school started to seem unsafe, or when parents started to fear letting their kids walk distances through woods like that on their own. Probably somewhere in the late 90’s… I spent awhile longer pondering how the first humans had to manually test which berries were poisonous and which were not and how much fun that probably wasn't... We spent the evening working, playing games, and watching a silly action film that wasn’t intended to be silly, Olympus Has Fallen.

The Royal Academy

The following day we walked to the movie theater and saw the Desolation of Smaug, which was very enjoyable. I learned that English movie theaters have assigned seating, which was interesting, and that they have more commercials than American theaters, which I didn’t think was possible. Their movie theater also offered free Wi-Fi, which seemed odd to me.
We had dinner at home and enjoyed Christmas Eve day, Christmas, and Boxing Day at the house. We took a few walks through the woods and trails nearby during those days and got a lot accomplished. I also beat Fallout while Keegan beat The Last of Us. The weather wasn’t particularly good outside most of the time and strong winds upwards of 80 or 90mph knocked out power for much of southern England (not us though), and caused destruction we would see the effects of for the following few days. In the back yard of the house an old apple tree had toppled from strong winds on Boxing Day eve. I was very amused to see that the British weathermen didn’t seem to care all that much and dismissed what Florida would be in terror of with the dismissive comment “it’ll be rainy with winds of up to 90 miles an hour. Probably a good day to stay indoors if you can help it.”

The road to Stonehenge...

Was very cold and windy...

But certainly worth the journey!

After Boxing Day we took a trip to Stonehenge. Apparently located next to a highway (which always has a traffic jam due to people slowing down to take pictures), even on a cold windy day it took us awhile to traverse the traffic and get to the tourist center. The museum they have on site is really phenomenal, offering insight into Stonehenge’s construction, use, significance, and into the lives of the people who built it. It also explains how various misconceptions came into being, starting with the false belief that Romans built it, later delving into another false belief that Druids built it, and explaining how modern cults suddenly renamed themselves to be “druids” after druids were again given credit to its construction so they’d be allowed to hold ceremonies there (involving fake beards apparently). It’s a pretty interesting story. They also dispelled the myth that Stonehenge was perfectly aligned with the stars or setting sun, because at some point in history a “historian” manipulated his data to try to make this claim. Because the line for the buses to Stonehenge (located about a mile from the tourist center) was long, we opted to walk to Stonehenge, trekking through the beautiful countryside of England. Notably we saw sheep, crows, other birds, and ancient stone markers indicating how far London was.

My best photo of Stonehenge...
I want to use this as album art or something.

Stonehenge itself was phenomenal. Again, a huge site created from massive stones before the invention of the crane or trebuchet, constructed using a rope system and series of niches carved into the rocks. Braving winds almost powerful enough to knock us over as we walked around Stonehenge, taking dozens of pictures, and dodging the photos of other tourists. You can’t get within Stonehenge anymore (without reservation, after hours) but we were able to see it pretty well from the distance we were at. Avery was constantly asked to take photos of people, using their cameras, seemingly because he looked respectable in his Army jacket. It was so windy that we watched a bird give up on flying to walk to its destination because s/he couldn’t fly against the wind. 

The view overlooking Salisbury 

Old Sarum

After Stonehenge, we went to see Old Sarum, an Iron Age hill fort. Old Sarum still has a few walls intact, and it’s clearly visible where the old church used to stand, but what I found most enjoyable about the site (as the sun began to set at around 3pm) was the sunset view overlooking Salisbury. Walking the footpaths located next to a steep hill was the one of the best views I've seen. I think this was one of my favorite moments of the entire trip to England, in part due to the visual effects the setting sun had, but as cold as it was I’m not sure we could have remained on the site much longer than we did. I should mention here that almost everyone at the site seemed to have a dog or two. We also noticed that the bathrooms at old Sarum are built into the ground like hobbit holes with multi-colored glass ceilings. 

The London Skyline and the Thames River

The following day Kaitlin and I decided that we wanted to go back to London. We planned our journey using the train timetables and Google Maps, and departed to catch the 8:18am train to Ascot. From Ascot, at 8:40am, we departed to Waterloo and arrived in London by 9:30am, passing a gigantic building boasting the logo of the sister company to the one I work for. Spiffy. We walked across the Waterloo bridge towards our destination and passed a number of unique shops, including a bookstore that boasted an antiquities section (books over 100 years old). The most interesting book there, an journal outlining an expedition to one of the remote corners of the Earth featured in a Lovecraft novel, was also the most expensive and I couldn’t afford it. Later, we tried to get a picture next to a phone booth, but a number of pornographic stickers placed on the insides of all of them prevented us from doing so. We also passed an “obscure” book shop across from the British Museum, then opted to check out the impressive looking British Museum, which was also free to the public (though donations of 5 pounds are encouraged).

The British Museum is phenomenal

The British Museum is massive. Each room contains at least one piece I'd travel a great distance to a remote museum to see... I could probably write a series of blog posts just about the things I saw there, but instead I’ll just post pictures with an explanation of why certain things are significant. If you ever go there, I recommend eating before you get to the museum, bringing more food, bringing water, and never having to go to the bathroom ever, because the lines are huge and things are a bit pricey. I think my favorite parts of the museum were the Greek buildings they reconstructed, the Mesopotamian tablets and structures, and the Egyptian sections. I also greatly enjoyed seeing reconstructions of the Korean Traditional building, which resembled the Traditional Korea House I’d visitedduring the summer, and being able to say “I’ve been there!” That's actually something I didn't expect, that one of the most comical things for me while going through the British Museum was being able to recognize many historical pieces that belonged to sites I’ve visited over the years THAT WEREN'T AT THE SITES THEY WERE FOUND AT WHICH I WAS VISITING! For instance, when I was in Egypt they told us that an obelisk, some mummies, and some statues were at the British Museum, and when I was in Greece and Italy they told me that many statues I wanted to see were at the British Museum. It's hard to describe the feeling of seeing them...  I suppose it was a very real reminder that England was a world-conquering empire throughout history. The best indication of this was a book in a gift shop I saw titled Countries We’ve Conquered.

The Crystal Skull!

An Easter Island Statue!

I childishly laughed when I read this and looked up to see...

Something that didn't meet my childish expectations... 

"Dragon Discovers Wasabi"
My title is fake but it's hundred year old china from China.

Emaciated Buddha... It not as happy as well-fed Buddha

Chapter 100 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead!

Mummies!

A depiction of Ramses II winning a battle I'm pretty sure he historically lost...
Ramses II: Master of Propaganda!

In a 30' room, there are wall to wall depictions
of King Sargon hunting lions

Clay Tablets of things like Gilgamesh's Flood Story, a list of Synonyms,
Treaties, the Meaning of certain Names, etc. 

A "World Map"

Better Picture of the above "World Map"

An early instrument

Another Instrument found in a room with a bunch of
dead people who were probably murdered...

A colorful pillar that in theory matched a temple

This clearly inspired a level in God of War II

A Citole
The most beautiful instrument I've ever seen

A ceremonial shield

The Cyrus Scroll...
Largely important because Cyrus The Great was pretty awesome

A Map of the Palace of Minos.
The place the Minotaur was supposed to be beneath! 

After the British Museum we stopped for Indian food, took the half-hour walk back to the other side of the Thames, passed a Mr. Bean impersonator, and got in line for the London Dungeon. For those who have never heard of the London Dungeon, located next to the London Eye (a giant Ferris wheel constructed for the year 2000 special event, that the loved so much, they kept running), is kind of like Halloween Horror Nights, or Hallowscream, or any other haunted house event but better. It’s one part ride, one part play, historically accurate, and very educational. There are actors who guide you through jumps, scares, mazes, boat rides, rats, odd smells, and a bunch of other things I don’t want to spoil for you.  It’s not for the weak of heart or small children, but it’s a lot of fun and well put together. Even the restrooms offer amusement, as the urinals in the men’s room all have bloody guillotines in front of them. My only possible complaint would be the lines to get into the lines to get into the lines to get into the London Dungeon. Still, it was an hour long series of lines in exchange for a good 90 minutes of non-stop fun, and when compared to the hour-long waits at Disney or Universal for a mere 3 minute ride I really can’t complain that much.

We got in line for the Dungeon as the sun was setting, at about 3:00pm, and left at about 5:30pm, just in time to catch the 5:50pm train to Ascot, and the subsequent train to Camberley. We watched some more British TV, ate dinner at home, and checked out how many 3DS Street Passed we’d acquired. It was a good day.

Sunday, 12/29/13

Saville Garden

We spent part of the next day with friends, walking through the nearby Botanical Gardens, polo fields, and public footpaths. It was muddy, windy, cold, but very pleasant. It was a true experience of the fall/winter season that doesn’t exist in Florida. Kaitlin and I were still pretty tired from all the standing and walking from the day before but still found the walk enjoyable. Getting to and from the gardens was a bit of a hassle because the roads leading there were effectively one and a half lane wide, with people parked on the side of the road at various points. After the day’s walk we were pretty hungry and went through three taverns in search of food, all of which either didn’t serve food or only served food earlier in the day. The final tavern we ate at, a chain pub, had okay food and a very uninformed/rude wait staff. The quote of the evening was something like “Yeah, the mac and cheese is vegan.” We got back early, worked more, and woke up the next morning in time for the 10am Monday siren.

The 10am Monday siren is sort of like an air-raid siren, but softer, and belongs to the local mad-house to inform the inmates that it’s time to get inside. If that’s not creepy enough the siren is almost melodic, just quiet enough for you to question if you’ve really heard it to begin with, and muted by the strong rain and winds. This weekly event is to creepy for me to make up and is a real thing in Camberley. We stayed indoors for the day, did more work, and prepared for the journey home on New Year’s Eve. The trip home was uneventful, so I’ll simply say it was mediocre, filled with crying babies and more in-flight movies.

Old Sarum

My first trip to England was everything I’d hoped it would be and more.  It was quite surprising at times, too. For instance, I’ve heard that people in England are not the most friendly and was happy to see that it's not true. I also didn’t expect us to pass as many manors, castles, and giant green fields as we did while driving, or for the sun to be as absent as it was. England was full of pleasant surprises like the Who’d A Thought It pub, the London Eye, Old Sarum, the Avbury Stone Circles, or the experience of a Reading football game. If I lived closer I'd try to be a regular and maybe even a legit sports fan for the team. We only really got to see the south side of England and I feel that there’s much more to be explored! I will certainly go back to England to explore more of its wonders, and will remember this trip for the rest of my life.

Published Interview: Steven Belledin

I had the privilege to interview an extremely talented artist for the Russian Sci-Fi/Fantasy magazine Mir Fantastiki! This is an English transcription of that interview, which was done in English. The rest of the article was translated from Russian, though I've taken out the uniquely Russian Idioms that don't translate well into English. Special thanks to Sergey Serebryanskiy for the intro and formatting and to Mir Fantastiki for allowing me to post this!

A Conversation with Steven Belledin

Belledin was born and raised in Pennsylvania. After high school he moved to New York and studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Over the years Belledin has worked closely with Wizards of the Coast. He started illustrating Dungeons and Dragons books and then became one of the leading artists working on the collectible card game: Magic: The Gathering. In addition to concept art, Belledin works on covers and interior illustrations for various projects.

"The main thing is catching the mood."

When and why did you become an artist?

It was just something I did and enjoyed since I was a little kid. For whatever reason my parents were encouraging so from a very early age this was something I wanted to do. I had some really excellent art teachers in school and I ended up going to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. That's where I learned the nuts and bolts of how to put a real painting together and learned the craft. I've always taken art very seriously, as a profession. I didn't really understand what the lifestyle would be but I understood that I wanted to make art for a living. I'm not sure that if I really understood [what it entailed,] that I would have made the same choices but now that I'm where I'm at I wouldn't change a thing.  I just wanted to make cool pictures and tell stories visually. I didn't really have anybody telling me that I couldn't or shouldn't be doing it. I was just very fortunate because I was always encouraged and I happened to be decent at it. It was one of those things where I've had a fairly realistic view of how good or bad I am and at the very least I feel like I can say "well at least i'm decent enough to warrant getting jobs here and there." I'll probably never be Frazetta* but I'll keep doing it because I'm compelled.

*Frank Frazetta - The famous American artist of science fiction who has had

a big impact on fantasy art.

What projects do you enjoy the most and why?

Any project where I really get to explore more introspective or moody imagery because I like to explore broad emotional cues. I'm much more interested in the quiet moments and thought driven imagery as opposed to cool battle scenes and giant swords. I love all that stuff but what I feel most fulfilled by is the weird, austere, emotive exploration.

Some people see your art as being somewhat dark. Would you say it's something that you put into your work or do people seek you out to create dark images because it's something you're good at?

I think it's much the latter. It's not something I ever set out to do as far as the imagery goes. Perhaps the people that assign work to me see it in me or they were curious to see what I would create with that subject matter. It's one of those things where it's sort of self-propagating. Someone will say "Oh, he's done this well so let's give him more of it!" For the most part I don't really mind as long as it's not over the top. Darker imagery doesn't really bother me. I didn't set out to become a horror artist but in a strange way I've sort of stumbled into it.

You once said that the beauty of the horror genre is "what's not shown," as opposed to gore or gratuitous violence. In your opinion, what is more characteristic of modern horror?

There's room within the genre for both but for awhile there was a trend towards more explicit torture or blood and guts films. I think there was a whole sub-genre for a few years called something like 'torture porn' and that's what horror became for awhile. I think people like Guillermo Del Toro really appreciate moody, suspense-driven horror which is my cup of tea way more than the blood and guts. I also think it's a little more universal. 

Do you have any favorite horror films?

I'm still a sucker for Jaws but I don't know that people would really call that horror by today's standards. To me the idea of it is really horrifying and I still don't like to swim. I think it's a good example of "things not seen." Of course Spielberg couldn't show the shark because the [mechanical] shark didn't work but [as a device in horror] it worked. That shape in the water basically takes on whatever you impose upon it. To me that's always more interesting.

Tell us how you first got involved with Wizards of the Coast and Magic: The Gathering?

I played [Magic] in high school and college but when I graduated I could basically afford art supplies or Magic, so I chose art supplies and stand by that decision. I got involved with Magic because I was doing Dungeons and Dragons [Edition 3.5] work for years. I did artwork in 20 or so books so while I was in Seattle I got to take all the art directors I ever worked for out to lunch. While I was there I figured I could maybe get an interview with the art director for Magic. He agree to see me but as far as I was aware he didn't like anything in my portfolio but he hired me for the next set.

There are many differ artists who work on Magic: The Gathering. What unites them in their works and would you say that there is a MTG style?

I don't know if there is a specific style but, at least currently, Magic is driven by more realistic artists. There's a lot less stylization than there used to be in classic Magic. It's very much a realist-driven fantasy aesthetic. There are no caricatures anymore and there's an effort to try to make characters and environments as realistic as possible.

Are you often given strict guidelines in your creations? 

It varies. Some assignments have been extremely explicit with "this is exactly what we want, please make this for us." Others are very broad. To me, and probably for most artists, the broader assignments are the most fun simply because there's more wiggle room. The less we as artists get to bring to the table the less interesting things tend to become. The more open ended and the more abstract it is, the more fun it is.

Do you prefer to work from your own creative imagination or other people's ideas? How often do you think clients restrict your creativity?

I enjoy doing everything and get bored very easily. I think that even in working on my own stuff constantly I'd eventually get bored so I really enjoy the challenge of having to work within the confines of clients' needs. Restriction is inherent to assignments but whether restriction inhibits creativity probably varies on a case by case basis. Creativity thrives from problem solving and usually [as an artist] you're given problems that you have to solve. Sometimes the solution is obvious and sometimes it takes a lot of thought and exploration to come to the solution. There are some clients that crush a certain degree of creativity by dictating everything down to the color pallet or composition of a piece but in general restrictions within the confines of an assignment aren't restrictive to creativity. I'm game for anything at the end of the day.

What inspires you? Where do your characters and ideas come from?

I'm mostly inspired by "old timey" painter guys, basically the American golden age of illustration. That's one of those things that has always recharged me. As far as i'm concerned the kings of that era are N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, the Leyendecker brothers, and Norman Rockwell. They're just visual storytellers who were amazing painters. I grew up not very far from where N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle lived and worked and they've always been a huge inspiration for me. Rockwell was everywhere when I was a kid too. There was a Rockwell calender up in just about everyone's house, it seemed. Those were the guys I looked to while growing up and who I still look to for inspiration. If i'm not sure how to approach a painting, I'll go back and look at their works or even go further back and look to Jacques Louis David and a lot of 19th century heavies. A lot of 19th century painters also serve as my inspiration.

What fantasy/sci-fi books or movies do you like and do you think they influence your work?

I'm all over the place. I'm more of a movie guy than a book guy for whatever reason and when it comes to Sci-fi, modern sci-fi always aesthetically comes back to Blade Runner. I'm a big fan, aesthetically of Dune (The Kyle Maclachlan version, not the SciFi Channel series) as well.  Fantasy wise, oddly enough I like the 1980's movie Dragon Slayer with Peter MacNicol. It's pretty cool. The design of the dragon is interesting and it's got a very earthy, used, and dilapidated feel to it. It's really atmospheric and cold, as well. The hero of the film is some shmo [Interviewer note: word meaning "a nobody" or "an insignificant person"] who's thinks he's a wizard. I saw it when I was relatively young. And of course Star Wars is huge (the old ones not the new ones) and as far as fantasy: Lord of The Rings (both the films and the books).

You have very strong beliefs on how you portray women in your work. Could you elaborate on them and talk about your views on the oversexualization of women in fantasy art and video games?

I think it's something that's coming more to light as more women start to play video games, as more women get involved in gaming in general, and as more women get into the genre. There is objectification of both sexes but there's a huge disparity between the breadth of ways that men are portrayed in science fiction and fantasy versus the very narrow way that women tend to be portrayed [in those genres]. At the end of the day there's always going to be people who continue that narrow depiction of women. Ideally I would like to see less of it, but the only thing I really have the power to change is my own work. I've been surrounded by very strong women throughout my life and I find that more inspirational than anything. I just can't see myself doing something that depicts women just as sexpots because it doesn't ring true to the women I know and have known. So that's one aspect of where I'm coming from. Another aspect is that a lot of the products I work on are targeted at people who are between 15-35 [years old] but there's a lot of younger people who get into it [Magic, D&D] much younger than 15 and I don't want to color their perception or contribute to little boys seeing women a certain way and little girls seeing themselves a certain way. I want to give them way more options than that if I can.

Do you think the limited portrayal of women in these mediums will change in the future?

I think it can. A surprising number of art directors and decision makers within the industry are women and their numbers are increasing. Their awareness of the subject is very real and the industry will change because they'll make it change. I strongly suspect it will, anyway. It's not that I have anything against sexiness or sex. What bothers me is that sexiness is what they use to define women, whereas it should be character first and sexiness if it applies. That's the thing, I like depth to every character and I think women are just as deserving as men of that kind of depth.

Do your values bring you into conflict with prospective clients?

They have. I don't work with certain clients because of it and I've almost lost jobs over disagreeing with changes to pieces. I try to work a middle-ground as much as possible and I've compromised more than I'd liked to on certain pieces, which I have regrets over. I have tried to stick by what I want to do as much as I can but it's kind of difficult because a lot of clients expect certain things out of you and you do have to eat. A lot of people have a very difficult time finding a path. I'm very fortunate in that I can afford to turn down certain jobs, but not everybody can.

Do you ever reject offers for being boring or do you try to make them interesting?

I reject certain clients because the aesthetic they require of me is not what I want to do, sort of like forcing a round peg into a square hole but I can't say that I've found something so boring I didn't accept it. I'll give anything a shot and feel on some level that if it ends up not being interesting it's because I'm not interesting.

You work by hand. A lot of your work is by done hand. Where do you see the profession of the artist evolving (or not) in the future?

In general everything is becoming more digital. I'm always at a disadvantage there because I work traditionally and my stuff has to go through a process of digitization to work in those mediums. I wonder whether there will even be actual books or just [digital] files except for very rich collectors 50 years from now. Despite the rise of digital media, there's been a growing population of people interested in owning original artwork. I suspect that there will always be people collecting art, passing those pieces on to their kids, and stoking the fires of the collector inside their kids. If that's the case, then there will always be room for traditional artists but I think the evolution is clearly progressing in a digital direction and there's no escaping it. 

Do you know any Russian artists?

As far as Russian painters there's a guy by the name of Viktor Vasnetzov who did these really fantastical but realist paintings. They're really cool. If I recall he lived in the 19th century and while I don't know much about the politics of Russian history of that era, a lot of his work was allegorical to what was going on at the time.

Do you have any advice for any young artists?

[Jokingly] Don't do it! Ha ha... Building a community of peers is really essential, people you can trust to tell you the truth about your work whose criticisms you can take but not take offense to. They can help push you in a positive direction, slap your wrist when you make mistakes, and urge you towards getting better while you return the favor. You also get to grow together and build upon on another's successes. For me, personally, that has been one of the huge hallmarks of how I got where I am.


You can see more of Steven Belledin's work on his website. He also maintains a weekly blog, outlining his latest projects.

Captions: 
Overgrown Tomb - A rare landscape done for Magic: the Gathering. I always enjoy doing this kind of thing, and this piece is among my favorite things I've painted for the brand.

Izzet Chronarch - A recent image done for Magic: the Gathering where I was asked to create a new version of a classic Magic image. This kind of thing is always difficult when I'm familiar with the original art because I find it hard to get the old image out of my mind. Hopefully I did the original image justice.

Nightveil Specter - This piece took a long time to paint. I'm still not entirely happy with it, but it's gotten a really positive reaction from fans. I think if I had more time, I might have made the city below more detailed.

Surrender - The bottom half of this was used for a Magic card, and this remains the sole image I've ever done for that game that I will never sell.

Valentine - One of the few comic-related projects I've ever done. It's the cover for a printed version of an online comic. It was a lot of fun to work on and the client was really easy to work with. I wish every client were like this!

The Battle of Badass -  The most recent in the Badass book series. This time the book focused on amazing historical battles. It was an interesting job because it had to feel consistent with the other two covers. I ended up making subtle changes to the piece for myself after I handed it in. I'm happy I went back into it.

Badass - The cover for the first in a series of books about amazing characters throughout history. A ton of fun to work on and my first job for a non-gaming client.

The Legend of Badass - The cover for the second book in the Badass series. This one was about fictional and mythological characters. The cover turned out to be quite a challenge as I had to repaint half of it due to a last-minute change in the characters they wanted me to depict.

First Born - This was done during a week-long intensive class. It was a great opportunity to focus on a piece for myself and to do some science fiction imagery for a change. It was also the largest piece I'd done professionally until quite recently.

Grizzly - This is an old personal piece that was completely inspired by the stuffed bear. My wife has had that bear since she was very young. She dragged the bear everywhere she went and as a result its color faded and it became very worn. I don't know why, but I became fascinated by the idea of a man who was a worn out as the bear, and so I painted this.

Teutoberg Forest - Of the interior pieces I've done for the book series, this is my favorite. It's simple, moody, and says exactly what it needed to. It's also the first piece I've ever done fully digitally.

The War of Arauco - Another rare all digital illustration done for the historical book series. I was inspired by comics more than anything on this one. It was a chance to do some fun, over-the-top action imagery and it was a blast!

Kono Michiari - Another of the small interior black and white paintings for a book series. One of the best parts of these illustrations is that the work was not mired in strict historical accuracy. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of really amazing and excellent historical paintings that are thoroughly researched and truly accurate, but I'd probably go mad if I had to do one, myself. Instead, I get to just go for these really dramatic contrasty images like this where the detail becomes mostly obscured.

Game Review: Far Cry 3: The Co-Op Campaign

I often subscribe to the "if you don't have anything nice to say..." mentality but when I sat down this Thanksgiving weekend with my friend Keegan to play coop video games for the few days of free time we both had this year (while recovering from the flu) we had no reason to suspect that we were in for anything but good times. We blew through the coop mode of the new Splinter Cell, we rocked Terrorist Hunts in a personal favorite, Rainbow 6: Vegas, and then we excitedly set up the Co Op Campaign for one of our mutually favorite games of all time, Far Cry 3. For those of you who've never played it, Far Cry 3 is an intense immersive journey of survival. It features one of the best video game villains of all time, a strong story that even Zero Punctuation gave praise to, one of the best free-roam stealth systems I've played, realistic mechanics for wildfires, terrifying and detailed wildlife, stealth-kills, and is a top-notch first person survival-shooter. Lured in by the promise of a "completely new story" and with the high expectations given to us by the main game and subsequent release of Blood Dragon we didn't expect that the co op mode could be anything but a great time.

About as deep as the plot gets

Plot: The introduction video that plays when you start the co op mode is very much in the vein of Far Cry 3, showcasing the main characters being sold out by their former employer, a ship captain known as The Captain. In short, the Captain took their money, sold the main characters to pirates, and left them high and dry. This much is learned from the video. What the Captain didn't expect the main characters to do was survive the pirate attack, get armed, team up, and cut a bloody path of carnage that would make Rambo blush. I found the introduction video to be exciting, enjoyable, and an indication of good times to come. Keegan and I seemed equally pumped and it came as a large surprise to us to find out that the video would be the most plot-intensive part of the entire game. 

Each of the six co-op missions has a plot, sort of, but the plot really doesn't seem that well thought out, executed, or relevant to the main story of "getting revenge." It sort of just felt like a bunch of pirates incidentally got between the main characters and their prey, the Captain, so the main characters decided to murder them all for laughs and go through places they didn't really need to go through to accomplish their common goal. Each of the six missions, including the last one, didn't really feel like a quest for revenge and felt more like an attempt at finding less than creative ways to murder pirates on an island. Even the last mission where you actually get a go at the Captain (who is entirely absent throughout the other missions) didn't feel fulfilling in the least, and though I won't spoil the ending for you, I'll say that I felt cheated of any true resolution. The "interesting" characters that you get to play as never get developed further than skin deep and you shouldn't expect any insight into their lives or back stories beyond what you can find on the Far Cry 3 Wiki.

As for the four main characters you play as [left to right]: 

Callum: the Scottish thug. I honestly couldn't understand anything he said except the curse words and found him useful only as comic relief. He lacked any sort of real likability and I had no idea what his personal goals were or why he was even working with the other characters. It seems like he would honestly just ditch them at first opportunity and I was surprised that he was playable after the first mission.

Leonard: the crooked cop. I found this sexist thug to be devoid of any value or interest whatsoever. He's greedy, selfish, and while he delivers one of the best lines in the game in the final act I felt no progression or motivation for him beyond "I can't wait to kill this guy and be rich," which was boring.

Mikhail: the Russian hitman. Mikhail was the most interesting character in the Co Op because he had things the other characters all seemed to lack... Relatability and a conscience. Mikhail is ex-mob with a wife and daughter who just wants to start a new life. Sadly beyond the introduction you really don't hear anything more about his life.

Tisha: the ex-soldier. On the surface, Tisha seems like she's going to be relatable like Mikhail, a soldier with a tough upbringing who left the Marines for doing the right thing in a bad situation. However, where Mikhail quietly kills his prey and seems to get no real enjoyment out of the things he has to do to get off the island Tisha seems to relish in the violence and goes from noble Marine martyr to bloodthirsty thug. I felt like this was one of the biggest areas where the creative team really dropped the ball.

Without spoiling the "story" there is also a 5th character, one you don't play as who acts as your guide to the island. I found this character to be one dimensional, stupid, slow, greedy, and entirely unhelpful. There were a few times (like when he ran me over with a truck on accident or when he decided the best course of action would be to drive straight through the enemy encampment at 5 miles per hour) that I questioned if he was really on our side and why he wasn't cut from the game entirely.

The most exciting moment in the entire game...
Is in the first mission.

"Freedom/Gameplay": For a franchise known for allowing a player to accomplish a given task a dozen different ways and allowing players to explore acres of open-world environment the coop mode can only be described as a FF XIII style hallway from which you cannot possibly avoid conflict with every enemy on the map. Keegan and I are both traditionally stealth shooters, running through the tall grass with silenced scoped rifles, pistols, and a knife and killing only as many enemies as are required to accomplish a given task, if any at all. Given the fact that you're not allowed to walk more than a few paces off the main road for cover (you lose if you get caught "leaving the map" kind of like playing Marco Polo in a narrow swimming pool), the fact that you're not allowed to leave an area until you kill every person in that area (literally), this tactic is entirely nonviable. They also reduced the effectiveness of close combat attacks, which you can normally chain in FC3 and do a number of fairly awesome things with.

You start each level by selecting one of four basic layouts: Silent, Assault, Close-Assault, and Sniper, and beyond the ability to pick up the weapons of dead enemies (mostly AKs or weapons from other layouts), you're entirely unable to evolve or adapt your loadout. This is particularly bothersome when you encounter the armored bad guys who can take 3 sniper rifle shots to the head, 4 frag grenades, an unlimited supply of normal gunfire to anywhere but the head, and are all but immune to rocket launchers (which earn the "most useless" award for FC3 Coop) and are immune to futile close combat attacks. None of the guns except for the sniper rifle come with a scope either, and only two classes can use grenades. 

There are basically 4 enemy types: Gunners, molitov throwers, snipers, and men armed with machetes. They recycle the same few models throughout, throw dozens of each at you for each of the 6 levels with an occasional dog or armored heavy gunner/flamethrower, and that describes every enemy in the co op... All of them... No joke... While the mechanics of the game were mostly fluid, matching FC3, the removal of character evolution, stealth, scopes, and multiple ways to accomplish a task were infuriating. The worst moment for us was when we were told to "sneak through a base", we snuck through the base without being spotted, and then were told we needed to kill everyone in the base to proceed through the secret tunnel because Callum just felt like killing everyone. This is the sort of BS the game throws at you.

The joke here is that there are no animals in the Co Op,
so this scene isn't a part of the game...

Feel: The FC3 Coop is clunky and extremely awkward. By mission 4, the only reason we were still playing was so we could see if there was any sort of triumph felt in finally killing the Captain, whom the main characters talked about but whom we never saw. The missions felt like they weren't all that well thought through as the general idea for each mission was "sneak" into this area by killing everyone on the way there, push a button that operates something noisy, and defend the spot for a few minutes while the noisy thing happens. Of course there was the occasional mission of "pick up this object that suddenly causes enemies to spawn all around you and bring it across the map by walking down the middle of the road." Between the drudge of shoot-em-up missions were moments of relief akin to mini-games where you and your friends compete to see who can shoot more people with a sniper rifle, who can drive a jet ski better, or who can drive a jeep better. They felt awkward but were preferable over playing through another shoot-em-up mission that would have filled the space.

The FC3 Coop was incredibly glitchy. 

Even though we only played through it once, here's an example of what we had to endure to complete it:

The enemy spawning was abysmal and I'd often watch enemies appear feet in front of me, just in time to murder me with a 1 hit kill machete to the face.

After each checkpoint, our guns wouldn't reload.

The guns often glitched and vanished from thin air, making it look like we were only holding a barrel.

The textures and lighting as we went indoors and outdoors would often clash, get confused, and reverse on us, giving us a dark cave suddenly lit with brighter than day lighting.

The truck we had to escort often would drive too slow, too fast (at one point running me over), or just stopped altogether, forcing us to restart the mission.

Enemies we'd kill would often continue talking or shooting guns during the closing cinemas to each mission, so we couldn't hear the scarce dialogue of the main characters.

A key zip-line ceased to be for my character, forcing me to fall 30 feet to my death on jagged rocks from which I could not be rescued. We had to use the zipline on the right after restarting from the checkpoint, which was about 10 minutes of gameplay back.

Art: This is actually the area I have much praise for the FC3 coop. While it's a glitch hallway style shooter it had some really solid visual character design. The main team felt unique visually, and while they lacked depth they looked cool and had good voice acting. For the most part the visuals in game matched the quality of FC 3, which is great, though for some reason the water seemed to be visually lacking during one of the mini games (perhaps just another glitch?). The music was unmemorable for the most part which I feel is a negative in a game that linear, and the audio design failed in that the world didn't feel truly like it was a part of the outdoors. There was also no visual or audio cue when you killed someone unless it was a Kill-Assist, which made progression frustrating... Correction, there is an audio cue, but it's often muffled by, and seems like it's part of the games soundtrack.

Closing Thoughts: They took out stealth, exploration, wildlife, wildfire, wind, close combat, the bow, arrows, scopes, and the plot. Shy of the name and tropical setting it didn't really feel very much like a Far Cry game at all. It was unenjoyable to play, unfilling to complete, and more glitchy than I thought to expect from such a large franchise. While it started off a great concept with an intriguing introduction video I can't recommend this game to anyone except truly hardcore fans of coop shooters devoid of plot or completionist fanatics of the Far Cry franchise.

Disclaimer: I understand that it's a huge undertaking to make a video game. I understand that I don't have any of the talents required to make a video game like Far Cry 3. I understand that rough timelines, budget cuts, and general corporate griminess can lead to a great idea turning into something less than stellar. I mean no disrespect towards the makers of this game with my review, nor do I hold any of them responsible for the problems I have with it as it very well could have been the product of corporate resource mismanagement, clashing ideas at the highest level (even a stellar team can't make conflicting ideas from their bosses into something good), or some other unknowable constrictions placed on the creative team.