To end the year I was looking for a possibility to provide the posts of this year as a PDF to make them available offline. First I just wanted to publish the "interviews" as PDF document. But it was harder than expected to find a way to get it done how I imagined.

So finally here's the result. I used Tabbloid to produce this PDF, it can be easily done, just send them the feed you want to generate a PDF out of. I chose this service of HP because it integrates pictures and links into the generated PDF. What FeedJournal, another newspaper style PDF service, for example doesn't do.

Unfortunately it wasn't possible to choose which articles and how many are included. So the PDF's content is about the articles of July until now. If anyone knows a better way to convert a blogger blog into a PDF document (including links and pictures) please contact me or leave a comment, because this was the first try to do something like that and I am not satisfied with it.

But I hope you enjoy my "half year" PDF summary of the Earthdawn Blog.

Happy New Year

Maybe you liked my post about "The Gamers" and as I discovered a little bit late, why didn't anyone tell me, the team of "The Gamers" are back with a new movie called "Dorkness Rising". You can buy also the DVD with additional material about the production and so on.

But the videos are also available on youtube. I post here the first three videos, if you like them, watch the rest of the 11 videos on youtube.

Enjoy:

I am very proud to present you at the end of the year a new interview. The title says it all, its about the artwork of the new book of Red Brick Limited "Kratas: The City of Thieves".


"Would you short introduce yourself?"

Hello, my name is Kathy Schad, Art Director of Red Brick Limited :-)


"On the page of Red Brick were several Kratas Teasers published which show some excellent works of the book. Please tell us a little bit about the work on them and how you came to paint them."

The Kratas Sourcebook kept us busy for a while and honestly I’m happy that it’s finally done. The project has grown as time drew by – at the beginning we wanted to „recycle“ some artwork from the older Earthdawn-books, but the text and of course the topic Kratas gave us various possibilities to give creativity full scope. I didn’t add it up again, but I guess barely the half of the book is completely new artwork. The illustrators carried out really great works. Parallel to the production of the illustrations we adapted also the layout. The book became much darker, more atmospheric. It was important to me as Art Director, to connect text and pictures much more closely together, than that was the case until now. I hope we can pursue this direction with the upcoming sourcebooks, but this requires of course much time and work.


"Which work do you like most?"

Uh, that’s hard to tell. David has contributed some marvelous ink drawings, so it’s really hard to decide. But I think, the dark Raschomontemple is my favor. Damien concentrated mainly on charakterportraits - there I like the design of Veniah Indirijan most, because that is one of the characters, which I had sketched long ago for the Kratas fan project. I had imagined it completely different, but it is really exciting over and over again, to see how differently illustrators interpret and convert texts and descriptions. My favourite contribution of Sade is the thief that is wrapped in shade, which is much more atmospheric in color.
From my own drawings I like two in particular - interestingly it’s first and the last picture, which I made for the book. First was the sketch of Kratas, this mass of ruined architecture, which rampantly grows over the mountain. The latter was the illustration of the Troll nethermancer with the caged windling. I made the sketch on the EDFC (Earthdawn Fading Suns Convention) in Dortmund, but then nevertheless some weeks passed, until I drew it in color.


"Which one was the hardest to do?"

Definitely the cover. Architecture is always difficult, and the whole details munch also a lot of time. From the interior-artwork, the illustrations, that are placed in front of each chapter, were the most complex to do. Those are all in color, needless to say that this lasts much longer, than a pencil or an ink drawing.


"It's the first book wherein all the art was done by Red Brick (true?)."

As already said, not completely. I would say the half consist of new illustrations.


"Which troubles did you encounter making the interior art?"

It was mainly a fight against time. All illustrators, which contributed drawings, do this as a side job. So the work on the Kratas sourcebook had often to stand back behind the demands of the normal working life. But thinking of this, we’ve nevertheless finished it in an tolerable time frame…..at least it’s still 2008 ^^


"Which drawing techniques did you use for the different paintings?"

Oh, very different. Pencil, water color, india ink. The coloration was of course mainly done digitally.


"Which do you prefer?"

My favourite technology is the simple pencil drawing, because the individual line of the illustrator preserved the best. But I also like to work digitally, whereby I actually always mix digital with classical/manual techniques, such as acryl or water-color.


"Thank you very much for the interview and the additional pictures"


Red Brick published some Kratas Wallpapers before the book "Kratas: The City of Thieves" came out. Those free wallpapers can be downloaded on their PAGE.

I wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year.

When you're a gamemaster and you want to use music in your campaign, first of all: Make a good selection.

On the one hand, using music, you can create a special mood for every situation. On the other hand, if the music doesn't match, it disturbs the flow of the game and destroys the mood you wanted to create.

So you got to select music and listen and feel what kind a mood it creates.

A very useful source for roleplay music are the CD's of ERDENSTERN. They are professionally produced for roleplaying games. Erdenstein already produced several CD's like Into the Green, Into the Red, Into the Blue, Into the Dark or  Into the Gold. Each one is about a specific topic, for example the CD "Into the dark" covers sinister, dark and fearful sounds.


You can download some excerpts for free from their page


All of the CD's are very useful, if you decide to enrich your game with music.

Another source for rolegame music are of course soundtracks from several fantasy movies like "Conan the Barbarian/Destroyer" Conan the Barbarian - Anvil of Crom Conan the Destroyer - Battle Song, "Willow" and "Gladiator". But also computer games offer a rich database to include music into your game.

But as I tried to point out in the beginning, you shouldn't just click PLAY and let the music echo in the back. Find the right point to turn up the volume and create a room full of darkness and fear.