How to: Acoustic Recording

Once again, just a brief thank you and shout out to my continued international readership in Germany, Canada, France, the UK, and Russia! I hope these posts continue to amuse you :)

My First Accordion

Since the start of my aforementioned experiences in a recording studio I've been on a quest to find the perfect acoustic recording sound. This post will hopefully explain through example how to affordability put together a solid recording home studio system and WHY you need each part, which was something I had a hard time understanding. Let's start from super basic and work our way to the more technologically complex.

Daw is also a village in Mauritania according to Wikipedia

DAW. Computer Editing Voodoo
First and foremost you'll need to pick a D.A.W. (Digital Audio Workstation) to install your computer. That's the computer program you'll use to record/edit/save the tracks you record. I personally use Mixcraft because it's simple, professionals generally use Pro Tools or on occasion Cubase which offer a lot of control, and a lot of people use Audacity because it's free and open source. In short: the red circular button is the record button and the other buttons you'd find on a remote do the same things they'd do on a remote control. The weird little timeline that moves from left to right visually shows you the sound you're recording, and your goal is to make sure that you see signals appear when you record that are fairly visible but that don't hit the top of the line. When people say that a sound "spiked/peaked" in spots or that it's "too hot" it means that what you're playing is too loud for the D.A.W. to process so everything will sound muffled. So obviously step one is to make sure that your sound levels are set to avoid this. 

Easy options to avoid spiking:

1. You can play (or sing) softer 

2. Play farther away from the microphone 

3. Lower the volume of the track on your D.A.W., 

4. Lower your volume (on the channel you're using) on your Interface (we'll get to that later)

5. EQ the track on your DAW or apply filters like a "dehisser" or limiter. 

Before you start recording you should play (or sing) the loudest part of your song and watch to make sure that you don't spike. In Cubase/Mixcraft there's a little bar on the bottom right that will turn RED every time a track spikes. Adjust your settings accordingly but don't arbitrarily reduce the volume to barely audible because you'll enter into a whole new world of problems and pick up many other things (professionally referred to as "noise") in addition to what you're trying to record.

Noise

Interfaces: How it plugs into your computer
Now that you understand how to hit the record button and not record a track that's too loud we move on to the next important step of the process, the Interface. If you're plugging a microphone into your computer's "Microphone" jack it might sound good at a soft volume but you'll notice a few key problems later down the line, mainly that you'll likely notice a hum, repeated click, or whirring on your track that are caused by your computer. Don't notice it on skype? You probably wouldn't. Now try recording a soft impactful piece of music and raising the volume 150%. Now that previously inaudible whir is all you can focus on. So in order to get a microphone to plug into your computer using a port that's not the microphone port you'll want to work through what's called an Interface. It's basically a box you plug a microphone or guitar/other into that plugs into your computer via firewire/USB/other. Firewire is optimal because it reduces latency... Which is a sort of delay that won't affect the quality of the recording but it will probably directly affect your performance. Interfaces can be expensive and because I record regularly I got a quality mid-level one through M-Audio. As long as it has the inputs you need to connect to a computer, to a headset, and to your microphone(s) you can certainly go with something a little cheaper if you don't need many inputs. For instance, flute would probably only use 1 input but accordion might use two because it produces sound from two places that are not close together. The nobs control the volume (see above) and turning them towards the "-" will reduce the volume, and turning it towards the "+" will increase it. Note that your headset has its own volume, so you might be recording something a lot louder/softer than you're hearing it. I've also blown headsets when someone thought it would be funny to set my headset volume to MAX, or when I didn't realize I was recording at a high volume and foolishly raised the headset volume myself when switching instruments. Assuming that you know how a microphone cable plugs in, how a headset plugs in, and how to connect a firewire or USB from the interface to your computer you've mastered this section of the exercise. Another advantage to using an interface is the reduction of computer related "noise." Now you'll only hear your computer humming or clicking if your microphone is too close to it!

This looks legit, right?

Buzzing and Electric Noise
If you still hear a humming sound, a consistent beep, or a droning click (1:09-1:12 is a very good example) either one of two things has happened. Either your Interface is causing the noise, which generally happens if there's been a bad power surge (as I discovered the hard way), if your Interface is extremely cheap and poorly made, or if the electrical power in your home is not conditioned. Didn't realize that the electrical power in your house could affect your recording? Well there's a fairly easy ~$80 fix... Power Conditioning. In short, you get a cheap power conditioner and it will regulate the levels and take care of the electrical related pop.

Most microphones don't work like this

Microphones
Depending on what you're recording, you'll need a specific type of Microphone that fits your price range and instrument. I suggest using a condenser microphone (as opposed to a dynamic microphone), unless you're recording more than one instrument at the same time, while in the same room. The condenser will pick up more sound at a higher quality (and any background noise from around your [home] studio space like the AC, a fan, a person 5 feet away tapping their foot, coughing, etc). What I mean by "more sound": If you think of microphones as having a bubble or sweet spot that they are most effective recording at, a condenser microphone will have a larger bubble whereas a dynamic microphone will have a smaller bubble because it's designed to not pick up other instruments that would be performing at the same time.

I think this pretty much covers the basics. If you record with the above specifications you will be able to either mix your own tracks to a professional level of quality or find someone who can. Either way the unedited tracks you record will be recorded at a good quality. Oh, and be sure to export tracks as a ".wav" file (or other loss-less file type) or else the quality of what you export from your DAW will be reduced. Don't worry too much if this doesn't make a whole lot of sense... that's more a function of editing than recording.

If you have any additional questions about recording in general feel free to ask them here.

Travel Journal: Republic of South Korea, 2013

South Korea, where old meets new
(Seoul Tower in the background)

It was 4:30am EST when I woke up to depart for the Tampa International Airport. It was dark and I was already tired from poor time management decisions the night before. I left home without observing my usual traditions and sure enough I forgot my passport, dress shirt, and belt. I think that's supposed to be bad luck, so I drove back and picked up a few extra things I didn't need in the hopes of countering the bad luck. I packed light, two computer bags, no computers.

6:03am at the airport

I took the drive to Tampa in the dark and listened to the soundtrack to King's Quest VI while reveling in nostalgia. At the terminal I started reading the book my friend Hex just finished called Alan on Kindle. I found it very enjoyable and because most of the book is dialogue I got half way through before the end of the first flight. It's a bit sad to admit but reading half a book is more literature than I've read in a physical format in the past 12 months.

I'm good at forgetting things

By 10am CT I was in Chicago. A short tram ride to the correct part of the airport, an additional security checkpoint, and a hot chocolate later I was in the terminal waiting for the plane. I'd brought my new Nintendo 3DS with me in the hopes that I could use the "street pass" feature to make friends in foreign countries, so I had it in my pocket with the little wifi thing turned on. Because I think of Asia as being generally more technologically advanced than America and because in my last trip I'd met so many friendly people of all ages who could kick my butt in Starcraft, I assumed that everyone there would certainly have a 3DS and that I'd rack up a bunch of new friends from Asia. Sadly I'd forgotten that Korea had this bitter hatred/death-feud with Japan over the centuries and was even more sad to discover that everyone seemed to play games on their smart phones instead. For a brief moment of hope I noticed an all ages US martial arts team, the Hapkido champions of the world, waiting in the terminal with me. I hoped that perhaps some of the American kids traveling with them might have a 3DS but no such luck. One beef and broccoli dish of sadness later I got on the plane and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the flight would only be 13 hours, as opposed to 23, my original expectation. All in perspective I guess...

The view never got much better

A few remarks about Korean Air. It's the best airline in the world. Period. Even if 1 in every 100 flights crashed I'd still fly with them because their quality of service is just superior. Period. I got 2 seriously amazing meals served with real silver silverware, I got a blanket, a pillow, slippers, an extra wide seat, a headset, a newspaper, and a personal TV with over 30 films, television shows, and specials. This is the norm. Also, the staff (all dressed in super-sharp outfits) have to meet a certain 'physical attractiveness' requirement that the US would frown on, but is totally legit in Korea. They've also been extremely friendly in all my interactions and seem genuinely happy to assist people with their issues. My flight consisted of the above, finishing the book Alan, reading through Brian Johnson's amusingly awesome autobiography about his experiences with cars, beating Metal Slug 7 on the 3DS, playing Castlevania: Mirrors of Fate until the battery of the 3DS died, arranging a medley I want to record for Dwelling of Duels, writing lyrics for a future Random Encounter collaboration song, and watching 3 or 5 movies. I enjoyed the new GI Joe movie the most (It was awesome! Dwayne Johnson delivers!), and a despite how bad The Incredible Burt Wonderstone was I refused to turn it off on the principal that my 3DS died and I'd mathed out how much time all the movies I wanted to see would take. I took a 4 hour nap and arrived in Incheon International Airport in the Republic of South Korea at 4pm 1 full day after I'd left, though only 13 hours had technically passed.

First impressions of Seoul

As I went through another round of customs I had the sudden realization that I'd not made plans to meet with my friends beyond "see you at the airport," had no cell phone plan outside of the US, and didn't have the faintest idea where they lived. Before panicking but after I'd passed the gauntlet of people greeting those who got off our plane I checked to see if my phone could pick up a wifi connection and use the Korean Skype app "Kakao" to reach them. I got lucky and found them in the gauntlet it'd just passed thanks to Kakao. We exchanged greetings, caught up, and took the bus to the great city of Seoul. As I forgot to mention earlier my purpose for visiting was to attend a wedding between two of my good friends, Helios and JY, (both incredible concert pianists who met through their mutual love of the instrument). In addition to myself, two other American friends (Josh and Cara) were visiting and JY informed me that the group did most of their sightseeing and hiking the day before. I was extremely sad to hear that i'd missed paying homage to the original Starcraft master Yi Soon Shin but was told that the weather was awful up until i'd arrived.

View from the bus

We caught up on the hour long drive to Seoul and stopped briefly at the hotel, apparently a sort of "love hotel" that was booked because of the inexpensive rates and proximity to where we wanted to be. I honestly couldn't tell that it was in any way different than a regular hotel except that it had a boday and the saddest air conditioning system I've ever used. It turns out that all of Korea isn't that big into AC as none of the places we visited seemed to use very much of it. Instead people just carry fans. Suddenly the sunny weather that seemed to follow me from Florida was no longer so friendly but the sun thankfully started to sink lower as we walked to meet up with JY's parents and family for the first time. I'd effectively met Josh and Cara on the walk to the dinner for the first time, and while the traditional Korean dinner where we met JY's family started off as a slightly awkward event, things quickly picked up after JY's father told Josh that he had a resemblance to President Nixon... Which those in the room who were Korean genuinely thought was a complement ("being compared to a former president is a good thing, right?"). Once Nixon's presidency and controversies were explained we all had a good laugh and got past trying to be super formal.

Second Dinner

As for the meal itself, we had an extremely diverse 20 plate dinner (each person sharing what's on each plate, each plate delivered one at a time) that started off with things I was used to like beef & noodles, and gradually got to more interesting, with things like fried mushroom with calamari, octopus, and jellyfish. I was most proud of eating the jellyfish, getting revenge for countless bitter stings i'd received as a child. During the opening moments of the meal JY politely asked if I'd like a fork and while I'd declined one was politely given to me by the wait staff shortly after I made a fool of myself with chopsticks.

Calligraphy

Later, we followed JY's parents to their home and were given additional food. Between tea, cake, and kiwi JY's father showed us how to do calligraphy, which was pretty awesome. He explained a lot of the meaning behind it i'd never understood or fully appreciated, and even made a piece for myself and Josh/Cara to take home. It was a really pleasant evening spent with people who felt like family, though we'd only just met. Later, our party planned to visit a PC room and try out the game League of Legends (which I'd never played) but I somehow wound up falling asleep in the hotel room. The others had a similar experience of falling asleep on accident.

The Traditional District

The next morning my 3DS was charged and I awoke to find that i'd made a friend on the airplane ride! Practically popcorning with excitement I discovered my new Asian friend from... well, Mexico... That's sort of a foreign country I guess... After a 7 dish breakfast (actually I just downed 7 huge assorted pastries lathered in butter and felt cripplingly full) at Paris Baguette we walked to the bus, took the bus to the train, and took the train to the traditional district of Seoul. It's basically a large shopping area where you can find almost everything you're looking for that isn't electronic. The word "traditional" can be found on just about every shop and we stopped in almost all of them passing calligraphy shops, tea shops (I'll admit, I got a set), art shops, clothing shops (sort of traditional), and antique shops. Unlike in America where anything over 100 years of age is considered extremely old ($), just about everything in the Korean antique shops we visited was at least 120 years old. If it's not over 600 years of age it's not really a premium ($) item. I narrowly avoided getting a super old wind-chime made of swords and a gong on the logic that it would never get through customs and moved on to a small-crafts station where you can warp glass, make mother-of-pearl items, food, or paint various clay objects before glazing them. The streets were fairly crowded, mostly by locals, and the "graffiti" was mostly confined to a specific area that seemed almost intentional. I'll also admit that we went to a "traditional" photo booth and took a bunch of silly pictures while in traditional garb.

"Graffiti"

Traditional Photo Booth...
Just like the ones in centuries past

The ladies and I stopped by a traditional tea house while the guys, traditioned out, went to a PC room filled with smokers (there's a current events controversy about this I'm told). The tea house was a beaming highlight of the trip. A traditional building, traditionally garbed staff and seating, and lots of super-high quality tea. I got the super-expensive $15 Buddhist Monk, burnt 12 times, uber-exclusive green tea that wound up being the best tea I've ever had. It didn't need sugar. It was perfect just as is. There are some rituals associated with tea that I won't bore you with, but rest assured that those traditions were observed. JY had hibiscus tea (with real hibiscus leaves you could see) and Cara had some other flower-based tea, made with the real flowers. By the time we were done being traditional the sun was setting and we met up with the guys for an early dinner. I was still feeling bloated from breakfast somehow, despite walking over 5600 steps (according to my 3DS) and skipped out on food. Sadly I didn't pass anyone in the traditional district with a 3DS, but when Helios used the bathroom (and got lost trying to find it) he said that in a traditional bathroom (hole in the ground) without any form of lighting or windows (aka a pitch black room), he used his 3DS's screen to find his way and randomly in the darkness it picked up another 3DS in the area and started glowing green. Somewhere in the dark abyss of the traditional bathroom Helios's 3DS made friends with a Japanese man with a creepy looking Mii. Maybe a resident ghost?

The best tea I've ever had

Leaving the district, we checked out a 7 floor department store, a quarter of a square mile sized music store with more instruments than I've ever seen in my entire life (all of them combined) under one roof, and took a taxi to the Seoul tower. Engrish signs informed us that children, disabled people, and "oldsters" get a discount on the zip-line cable car. After waiting in line (with no AC and perhaps 150 people in a small room) we took the line up to the base of the tower and were sad to find out that it costs an extra $30 or $50 to get to the top. Being a bit broke we took pictures from the base of the tower, which reminded me strongly of the pillar in Sector 7 in Final Fantasy 7. Near the tower there was a fantastic scent that we discovered belonged to a Cold Stone Ice Cream. Without lactose pills I sadly sat back and watched as my companions ate and JY asked me about lactose intolerance, which is extremely rare in Korea. Helios got a caricature made with JY while giant projectors brought the tower to life with a fun animated show that played on the tower itself. The effect was really cool and when the show concluded at around 10pm or 11pm we took the cable car back town, took a taxi back to the hotel and slept. We planned to play League of Legends but Helios and JY had to wake up at 6am for their wedding and it seemed like a bad idea. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised that my 3DS glowed green with a new friend! Sadly, it turned out it was only because after 12 hours you can re-friend your previous friends, so it was just Helios from Texas. After this sad revelation I went to sleep.

The Seoul Tower

Building near the Seoul Tower

The next morning I met with Josh and Cara, accidentally skipped breakfast (I arrived late), and traveled by bus and then subway to the wedding site at the Traditional Korean House in Seoul. Because the wedding is a deeply personal moment for my friends they'd probably not appreciate everything being shared on the internet i'm going to skip some details and misadventures.

View just beyond the Traditional Korean House

Turn around and...

The Traditional Korean House...
In the heart of Seoul

The wedding was a traditional Korean wedding (JY is Korean if you haven't caught on yet) and the Traditional Korean House is extremely good at traditional things. The moment we walked through the doors I completely forgot I was in the city. Everything about the property, the buildings, and the staff felt like it was a few hundred years in the past, like we were transported miles and miles away from the nearest city. It was very relaxing and is one of the few times I'd feel comfortable saying the word Zen without a hint of sarcasm. They took very good care of my friends and the wedding party room was the only room in all of Korea we visited that had perfectly functioning air conditioning (that wasn't a PC room). I'm not joking about this and we even took pictures of ourselves next to the AC dial showing the temperature. 

Through the gate...

Past the pond...

Down the path...

with a view...

To the place where the bride and groom are.

All this is in the middle of a city but you'd never know it

I remembered the pants this time

The wedding ceremony observed many customs which I'm entirely unaware of but overheard in passing over the last day and a half. There was a duck passing ceremony for the Korean equivalent of the best man (Josh), who has to be both a husband and father beforehand, spiritually imparting the knowledge of success (the duck?) to the groom. There was tea, there was a small rice-crispy looking cake eaten by the bride and groom, a large meal for all, lots of bowing, a 10 or 15 piece fan-dancing troupe, a 5 piece drum-core acrobatics team with giant streamers attached to their heads, a 7 or 8 piece traditional band, and a few hundred people that came to pay their respects to the couple. It was fantastic, like a period piece kung-fu movie without the kung-fu, and I was very proud to represent myself as a member of Helios's family. It might seem weird that i'd say Helios and I are family, but after what we've been through with Random Encounter, with college, with joining the work force, plotting, planning, being pen pals, D&D games via group email that took weeks, and the fact that we're still talking to each other, we really are kin and I may have shed a few tears during the wedding. 

Helios and JY in the traditional wedding garb

The Acrobat Drum Team

Easily the coolest wedding ever

Again, skipping many details about the wedding ceremony, the bows (no vows were spoken by the bride or groom) and tea were exchanged, pictures were taken during a random cool breeze, and Josh, Cara, and I ate while the happy couple greeted all of their guests before being allowed to sit and eat (which was sort of comical because Helios nearly passed out from lack of food before the half hour-long wedding ceremony started). During the meal we discovered a strange glass bottle on the table that looked like water. Casually we poured it into our respective cups, so to fit in and not be barbaric Americans. As I picked up my cup I noticed a slew of people staring at us like we were doing something wrong. "Oh" I thought, "Wrong hand", and I shifted my cup from my right hand to the left hand, because tea is traditionally held by the left hand and perhaps there's some sort of parallel. I heard someone nearby giggle and took a sip of what I can only describe as something that tastes like hydrogen peroxide smells. It was strong, it was bitter, it was sterile. As wasting food/drink is frowned upon, especially at a wedding, I had to plug my nose to finish off the rest of my cup and downed 2 coke bottles (in cups) to fight off the taste midst laughter from those around us. One person actually fell over with laughter, which led me to believe that my suffering was somehow amusing.

Fun times with my new in-law

A few hours later we found ourselves in a PC room, finally, after the strong desire to play League of Legends as a 5 man team had all but consumed us. To our displeasure we had to install the US client of the game, which took an hour or so but eventually we got to play and had fun. It's worth mentioning that we also got ramen cooked and given to us at the PC room for ~$3. I notoriously don't like spicy things and chose the unlabeled ramen over the ones directly labeled "spicy." Unfortunately for me the unlabeled one turned out to be the most spicy of all but my hunger forced me to finish this meal from hell. A few hours after that we went back to the hotel. I'd still not made any 'new' friends on my 3DS besides Helios at this time (yes, I brought it with me to the wedding, artfully concealed in a suit pocket. In my defense, so did Helios!), so JY said she'd be my friend once Helios set her new 3DS up. Helios did this (to clarify: JY didn't stay in our hotel) as I went to sleep, dreaming of my fail-safe plan of making a 3DS friend from Korea. The next morning I awoke to find that I indeed had made a friend! In addition to Helios, JY had activated her street pass and joined my small band of buddies! It took a few moments, but I realized to my horror that he'd registered her as being from Texas... No chance of meeting anyone from Korea now, I left at 5:45am to take a bus to the airport. I'd said my goodbyes the night before and thanks to a series of perfect events, found my way to the airport in record time. On the airplane ride back I watches a series of gradually more and more new but awful Hollywood action movies (sorry Arnold), enjoyed Snitch (Dwayne Johnson delivers once again!), beat Mirrors of Fate (It wasn't that great of a game but I liked certain things about it), and read Dan Abnett's Pariah, which I didn't fully appreciate until the last 50 pages. It's comical to note that while I left Korea at 11am, I arrived in America at 10am, effectively time traveling, though not in any meaningful capacity. It took another 8 hours to get home and I was unpleasantly greeted with a slew of chores I'd neglected when I'd left, a few rapidly approaching deadlines, and 220 urgent & unread emails. All in all a great trip and I hope to visit the Republic of South Korea again in the future. Hopefully I'll get more time to visit places of historical significance.

Back in America, frustrated with my 3DS

Published Interview: Brom

I recently had the privilege to interview one of my all time favorite artists 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. Special thanks to Sergey Serebryanskiy for the intro and formatting! Special thanks to Mir Fantastiki for allowing me to post this here!

A Conversation with Brom

Gerald Brom (who goes simply by Brom) was born in Albany, Georgia in 1965. As a child, he traveled around the world with his father, who was in the military. Brom did not attend art school, but drew since childhood, and a the age of twenty he became professional artist. Four years later Brom started working with the company TSR, engaged in projects on role-playing games, and his career has been linked to fiction ever since. Brom worked on collectible card games and comics - including Dark Horse and DC Comics. He created the concept art for movies ("Sleepy Hollow," "Scooby-Doo", "Van Helsing") and gaming (gamers should thank his designs for the Doom and Diablo series). Covers drawn Brom decorate books by Michael Moorcock, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, and RA Salvatore. 

Brom is not only an artist but he's a writer released. Over the years he's released four books featuring his own illustrations, each a dark and exciting phantasmagoria that matches Brom's style. At the recent artist convention "Spectrum: Live" (the report you can in this issue of "World of Fiction", page 82) Brom was awarded the title of Grand Master. As the inscription on his official artist website says, "Brom is currently kept in a dank cellar somewhere in the drizzly Northwest. There he subsists on poison spiders, centipedes, and bad kung-fu flicks. When not eating bugs, he is ever writing, painting, and trying to reach a happy sing-a-long with the many demons dancing about in his head."

"I'm drawn to the darker side"

Five years ago, we spoke with Brom about his dark and haunting images but since then the famed artist managed to do a lot. For example, he's written and produced a number of books with his own illustrations and worked on concept art for Diablo 3. Today we talk with Brom about his terrifying tales of monsters and draw upon his own fears.

Last year you released the book Krampus: The Yule Lord. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Krampus is a Christmas demon that goes back to pagan times. My wife introduced him to me. I had no idea at the time who this guy was but I found out that essentially he likes to take naughty children, put them in a sack, beat them, and throw them in a river, and if they're really naughty he will cook them and eat them, so instantly I fell in love with him. When I started digging into his back story and found that he predates Santa Clause and thought it would be interesting if this guy came crawling back wanting to reclaim his holiday. That was the catalyst that started the book.

Why do you decide to make people who would likely be considered the "bad guys" the protagonists of your books?

I kind of feel like there are really no good guy and bad guys in the stories. As a writer when you start to define motivations you come to understand the characters and rarely does a character think of themselves as evil. Since a lot of it was from his point of view I think it just came across as what his desires were and who was in the way of his desires.

With your family, do you celebrate Christmas, Yule, or both?

We celebrate all of them together with a little Halloween mixed in. 

What does Krampus have in common in regards to other stories of yours, such as The Child Thief, and what are some of the differences?

The similarities are some of what I was touching on earlier, the fact that I tend to like to tell stories from the point of view of the monster to some degree, to be empathetic to what their desires are. In the Child Thief, even though it was a retelling of Peter Pan, Peter comes across a very charismatic psychopath but once you get to know him you understand the why's [in regard to] the way he is and you become sympathetic to his plight. As far as differences, I think there are more similarities than differences because I'm drawn to the darker sides of literature and characters and understanding their motivations.

You wrote that The Child Thief was born from the "unsettling events of James Barry's book." Are there any other children's books that you can think of where you've found similar unsettling events?

You know, there are more to list than not. They're called cautionary tales for a reason, the Grimm's fairly tales and stuff, they were meant to scare kids. [For instance] Ginny Greenteeth the bog fairy, if you go near the bog, she will pull you underwater and eat you. What that was meant to do was scare the kids away from the bogs and the creeks where they would drown. To answer your question there's an endless amount of stories that need to be told and retold.

Do you think you'll look to other famous stories to make a book out of in the future?

I might but I feel that it's become a bit of a trend in current literature and movies to retell old fairly tales in sort of a hip edgy way. The creative [muse] in me likes to look for something a little more personal to do, so I'm trying a new book project where I'm looking to just invent my own mythology from the ground up.

Does it have anything to do with the upcoming art book: The Art of Brom? [Edit: Now Available!]

It does not. It's very separate but there might be a painting or two in there that end up rolling into this book. 

In your books the protagonists generally get in trouble because of drug trafficking. Are you trying to subtly show us that it's a path from which no good can come from? 

A lot of people read political themes in my books whether it's environmental, drug [related], or political but none of that matters to me. To me it's about story. I want to tell an engaging entertaining story, I want to be honest to the story, and if those elements are honest to the characters that's why they're there.

As you come up with the stories and you draw a cover to it, do you feel that having a visual cover featuring the main character(s) in some way limits the imagination of the reader?

Growing up I loved literature that was illustrated. Even though I had my own vision I liked seeing someone else's vision. Whether you call it a gimmick or my unique ability to be able to both illustrate and write, create these characters and worlds both from a literary point of view and a from an illustrative point of view, it's a lot of fun because it's the same thing I did as a kid. I'm hoping that that fun crosses over to the reader and the fans.

You talk about a lot about supernatural elements in your stories. Have you ever seen anything supernatural you'd be comfortable discussing?

I'm pretty much superstitious about everything. I'm scared of everything, I'm scared of all religions. That's why I believe in all of them. We used to live out in Elkhorn, Wisconsin where there was this rumored Beast of Bray Road, this werewolf creature that people had seen. My mind just went nuts. Every time I took the garbage out at night I knew that guy was waiting in the bushes to get me, but as far as any actual personal experiences I've had, my imagination has a tendency to create its own horrors.

What do you prefer when experiencing a horror story: suspense, violence, or a mix?

I think there's just so many wonderful ways to handle horror. On one hand I love what Del Torro does to create this empathetic understanding of the creatures that we're afraid of but at the same time I love stories where the creature is a mystery and is discovered through the tale. [Stories where the monster is] truly is a horror. I don't have a preference and think there's a multitude of wonderful ways to handle the material.

When you worked on the concept art for Diablo 3, were you free in creativity? What limits did Blizzard-Activision put in place and was it any different from working on the previous games?

It was a wonderful experience. The life of an illustrator can be painfully solitary at times and I have learned what keeps it interesting is to break it up; meaning sometimes working on my own personal projects where I have complete control but sometimes working in a community where it's a collaborative project. In the case of Diablo was collaborative and after working on two books for the last 8 years, to be able to go in [a studio] and work with other artists over a year was a complete pleasure. It was fun to feed off their creativity and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to bring their incredibly horrible monsters to life.

Were you allowed to play the previous games beforehand? Do you play games?

I used to play games a lot more when I was younger and i'm a big fan of all the blizzard games. In this case, yes, I was encouraged to play them. It was great to see how they [the monsters] actually interacted on the screen. It helped me when I went to paint them.

Did they also give you additional back story?

They did. They had tons of concept work so you also could see how the creatures evolved and where they came from. Again that was all part of the excitement. It was very inspiring.

What's your all time favorite video game?

It would have to be Diablo. That's the one my wife ended up having to hide from me because it was interfering so much with work.

What advice do you have for young artists?

(jokingly) I usually tell them not to eat paint but these days everybody works on the computer so that's not as relevant. What's important is to put what you want to do in your portfolio because the work you'll get will be based on what's in your portfolio.

Captions:

Bloody Ritual

Cover for the book "The Plucker." A depiction of the main character - Jack. Jack and his box are stuck gathering dust underneath the bed with the other forgotten toys but when the angry spirit of the Plucker is set loose, Jack has to rise to the defense of the boy who once abandoned him.

Krampus, gloomy spirit of Yule. This sinister predecessor to Santa Claus is Brom's latest book - "Krampus, the owner of Christmas." (Note: In America "Krampus The Yule Lord")

The Lion Head

Winged Red

Hooligan, ruffian from the mischief-maker

Bluff

"Horned" illustration to the book "The Rose Devil." "-I burned their churches, crucified their priest, raped their women and fed their children to our animals. He said it so casually, as if described merely serving a holiday table."

Comic/Creative: A Completed Script

Note: I write these a few weeks in advance. Know that I've been doing almost nothing but work on the Random Encounter album since this post was written...

Exhaustion

This week I've found myself spending more time working on the comic book than I normally do so it seemed like the right topic. My functions as the developer, writer, editor, producer, art director, marketing, and general continuity guy give me anywhere between five to twenty-five hours of things to do on any given week but the last few days have been exceptionally taxing because I just sat down and pushed through the rest of a complete adaptation of the script from light 90 page film script to detailed 150 page comic book script! It's been a two year journey and I'm extremely proud to finally be done.

Character Evolution of "Cade" from 2006 to 2013

As the writer I've generally looked at the same script I've been working on since 2007 (drawing takes time), made revisions, and revised those revisions a few more times. The main cause for rewrites have been upgrades in technology, back story, location, and plot revisions given to me by the artist & co-developer, who's really helped expand the world over the last two years. How will the characters in the story interact now that they're armed differently? Now that they've been hurt in the prior scene? Now that we've changed direction and killed off (or alternatively, let live) a character from a previous scene? How about now that every building is hex-shaped? A lot of things got changed over the grand transition from inception to script but it's been fun work. Over the last year we also picked up two interactive supporters, basically a kind of "pick your own ending" book (via a series of emails) where our donors control a character in the comic book series. They actually designed the characters with us and dictated what actions they'd take at significant crossroads. It's been pretty fun.

Interactive Supporter

Given the sheer volume of changes, writing and editing have taken up far more time than it should...

Fortunately we've had the benefit (or curse) of being able to revise the entire story because nothing's been released yet, so when a problematic plot point needs to change, like us not wanting to address a side character's medical condition early on in the series because "it takes too much attention away from the main story" I suddenly have a large task ahead. First I need to cut the dialogue from the big reveal scene while simultaneously marking the existing frames that have already been drawn for it. I need to find new content to fill the gap in the story so the comic remains at an even number of pages divisible by 4. The magic number is "4" because comics are basically large pieces of paper that are folded in half, with printed material on both sides. Then I have to sift through the entire script (for the whole series) and remove any references to the conversation. After that I also need to look both in the script and in the pages of the comic (that were already drawn) for required shifts in body language, interaction, and dialogue. Boring stuff to be sure but after the entire script has been read from start to (almost) finish again to make sure that it's still coherent I've been going back to finish the ever-changing final 40 pages.

"M-Guard"... Finally given the name Jax

The story loosely resembles a revolution led by a colorful and dangerous Dirty Dozen style cast. It became readily apparent by the time I'd reached the last quarter of the story from the 2007 script the original ending would be impossible to recreate because we killed off the key character it relied on. Oops... Far from an arbitrary choice (I strongly believe combat deserves a certain gravity) half of the characters I'd envisioned as being alive just didn't make it to the final leg of the journey. It was surprisingly emotional writing the final moments of characters that have been with me for longer than most real-life friends and I found myself questioning if I'd done a decent job of showing who they were within the confines of the script. I know how they'd act in a given scenario, I just questioned if I'd created the optimal scenarios to portray them in. We've also introduced a number of characters to the series that didn't exist at the start of 2012. Some of these characters also died but others wound up surviving, changing the delicate social dynamics of the group, and unexpectedly becoming fairly pivotal. We even had to name them after writing them into over 20 pages. I felt less and less like I was making up lines for characters and more like I was shifting the circumstances through which real people would interact. I felt like a D20 storyteller.

Storyboard "Thumb"

So having put in close to 40 hours over the week I finally made the much needed push to finish the script. Towards delirium on the final night I came across what amounted to a typo in a set of notes outlining the ending that seemed to make sense in my exhausted state. The typo was basically a placeholder idea I'd written in to fill the gaps of the story left by dead characters. It wasn't intended to be real. It wasn't intended to make sense. It was just what I thought would be running through the mind of one of the characters and how he'd justify his actions. However, instead of seeing it as an inner thought I mistook it for a key plot point (because of a formatting error) and ran with it. Somehow, as if by magic, an ending I hadn't envisioned came from it and all the problems and loose ends I wasn't sure about were magically fixed by my sleep-deprived mistake. I had Adam double-check my work the next morning and he verified that it wasn't just the sleep-deprivation, but that the story now had a solid ending better than the ones we were planning. Two complete revisions of the script later I'm sending it off to a few people for their professional feedback. With any luck we're down to minor revisions from here on out so I can put down the metaphorical writing pen for awhile.

Video Game Review: Rogue Legacy

I'd like to say a quick hello to my readership in Germany and France! Thank you guys for your continued interest :)

I was strolling around on the internet this weekend when out of nowhere my buddy Stomphoof shared a youtube video featuring gameplay from a cute little game called Rogue Legacy. You can watch the video I saw here, but in short it's a new side-scrolling action game with a toonish style. The game concept sort of interested me, and the music (specifically the song Pistol Shrimp, featured in the trailer) pulled me in. Despite being compared to Ghosts 'n Goblins (which I dislike) and looking downright impossible to play in the trailer, $15 on GoodOldGames.com and maybe 8 or 12 hours later...


Gameplay/Plot: Rogue Legacy is Metroid-Vania style game I'd equate to "Castlevania without the Dracula..." You, the descendant of... well, the first character you played as who died... enter a dark and spooky castle to avenge the death of your ancestor(s)! One of the big game mechanics is that you are always playing as a unique character. Let's start with the basics: Every generation (every time you die) you get to select one of three heroes/heroines. Each of these characters fits a quasi-typical fantasy genre character class: 

Basic/Upgraded Class

• Knave/Assassin: Low stats, high chance to get critical hits.
• Knight/Paladin: Standard Hero.
• Barbarian/Barbarian King: A walking tank. Low damage output.
• Mage/Arch-Mage: -50% health, +50% mana. Each Kill gives you mana.
• Shinobi/Hokage: Low defense and HP. No critical hits. Extra high damage.
• Lich/Lich King: Starts weak but gains health with every kill.
• Miner/Spelunker: Very low stats, but everything gives you more gold.
• Spellthief/Spellsword: Steals Mana from enemies with each hit.
• ????: A hidden unlock.

In addition to being randomly selected from each Class, each character has a few traits. These can be seemingly useless things like a compulsion to curse every time you're hit, no peripheral vision (which doesn't affect a side scrolling game), or being a savant at something to being really serious. The more serious traits your character can have are a great memory (allowing you to remember how many enemies are alive inside every room you've been to on the minimap), be nearsighted (making everything far off extremely blurry), have Alzheimers (which means you don't get a minimap because you're generally lost), be balding (which the game will ebb at your sanity regarding), or just eb adb ta spllenig tinhgs (wihch jsut srot fo cmopicaltes thngis).
In addition to your random class and traits, your character choices also come with a unique weapon (daggers, axe, watch, scythes, etc. ala Castlevania). 

After picking the 1 out of the 3 randomly generated descendants you want to play as you enter the castle, which is constantly rearranging itself. I don't just mean that you encounter the same rooms in a slightly different arrangement, I mean that everything completely changes every time you enter, meaning that though you can upgrade your character using the gold you found on the previous run through the castle, and though you have awesome gear, you're now going through unknown territory.

Far from the entirely unenjoyable experience of Ghosts N' Goblins in terms of difficulty I'd say that Rogue Legacy is no more difficult than a typical SNES side-scroller. It's fluid, the controls are very responsive, and the niche-upgrade system can cater to your personal style of gameplay. For instance, I never use Magic Items, I love using the triple-jump and levitate runes, and I constantly upgrade my sword because I want to do as much damage with each swing as possible. In an odd way the customization reminds me of Demon's Souls or Dark Souls, only with a sense of humor and references to Batman, Skyrim, and a dozen other things I won't spoil.

The Upgrade Screen

"Freedom": This game is as free as an exploration-based side scrolling game can be. You can fight bosses in any order you like (though you'll likely get schooled), you can upgrade your character in any ways you'd like (visually represented in the form of a castle), and there are countless little freedoms you'll notice while playing the game. For instance, a character known as "the Architect" will allow you to go through the same castle you went through (meaning the rooms/monsters are the same configuration) in your most recent playthrough at the cost of 30% of your earnings this time through. Noticeably the castle always seems to take into account what abilities/gear you have so there's almost no need to ever backtrack. Everything also completely rearranges the next time you enter the castle so there's also really no way to backtrack.

Portraits that resemble Paladin Lobos from Lords of Thunder!

Art/Music: The music was the initial reason I was pulled into this game so I'll vouch that it's extremely enjoyable. The SNES-era style character and bright flashing numbers indicating damage (ala Cave Story) were also things I greatly enjoyed. Should you want to check out the soundtrack, which I highly recommend, you can do so on the game's bandcamp page.

There are a lot of silly Easter eggs for you to find in this game that you'll likely appreciate. Everything from Nerdy Glasses (that fix being nearsighted) to Santa Clause. There is also a diverse array of enemy types, attacks, and minibosses.

The Bad: If you're looking for a really deep plot you're a bit out of luck as this is a generally carefree game. Luckily I wasn't. My only complaints with Rogue Legacy are that some of the upgrades are kind of expensive the further along you get. It's probably balanced, I'm just not used to "leveling" in an action-adventure game (at least not since Kingdom Hearts) and found that the rising upgrade prices tended to be tiresome after awhile. Some of the randomly generated maps were also particularly cruel, bordering unfair based on my gaming style or the class. Just the same the unfair parts of the game were completely gone by the next playthrough.

Closing Thoughts: I very much enjoyed Rogue Legacy and highly recommend it.