A. R. Redington/A. R. Crebs

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     A. R. Redington (Formerly Crebs) is the writer and illustrator of the Esoteric Design series. A native to Kansas, Redington dove into the creative world at a young age. Her passion for gaming and creating characters led her to pursue an art career, taking art classes throughout her academic life leading to her attendance at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design where she received a BFA in illustration/children's book specialization. With experience in graphic design, formatting, illustration, and writing, Redington creates and designs everything for her novel series while working freelance on the side. 
     The Esoteric Design is a sci-fi/fantasy novel series with chapter illustrations. There are currently 3 books in the series.

     You can check out A. R. Redington’s websites for updates, full color artwork, and to participate in future contests. 
www.ARCrebs.com
www.ARCrebs.deviantart.com
www.facebook.com/ARCrebs
 Visit the Amazon Author's Page HERE.
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Q & A

Thanks to Wichita's Mead Middle School for having me for a Q&A session! There were lots of good questions! 
Below are some of the questions asked by the middle school students and some of the more frequent questions I've been asked so far about "The Esoteric Design."
 
What does "Esoteric" mean?
Here's the definition: Understood by or meant for only the select few who have special knowledge or interest; recondite. Belonging to the select few. Private; secret; confidential.
I decided to use the word "Esoteric" in the title of my book because it's an interesting word that's not commonly used. I wanted the title to have a unique sound, something that will create interest. I've been told that it's an eye-catching title. "Esoteric" also has a lot of meaning for the book. The story involves many behind the scenes secrets that the main characters are mostly left out of. There's a whole design in play throughout the tale and you journey with the characters to figure out the secrets behind the enemy and the supposed correlations between them and the military corporations. 

How did you come up with the idea for this story/Dovian?
I actually created Dovian around the time I was 14. I had gotten into RPG games at the time thanks to a friend who introduced me to "Final Fantasy". I was also into anime at the time, and the themes from what I was watching  involved a lot of light VS dark. I also was really into angels and sorcerers and thought, why not meld the two together? I wanted to create something a bit more fresh and different. That's how I came up with Dovian and his Sorcearian race. They are sorcerers with magical abilities but have angelic properties that incorporate light and dark/negative and positive energies that feed into their powers. I basically drew from the white and black mages that are popular in RPG games. From there, I created other characters. Aria and Troy were militants, and they needed help with fighting the mysterious enemy and their deadly creatures. Seeking help, they discover Dovian in the ruins of his city and talk him into helping them out. And over the years, the story twisted and developed into an intricate plot with a whole slough of characters. And that's basically how I got my start. If it wasn't for video games, I probably never would have come up with the idea.

What was your process for creating The Esoteric Design?
I started creating art when I was in the third grade. I mostly drew from images I found in the old instruction manuals that video games used to have which were full of amazing character art and biographies (which inspired my bios, bestiary, weapons, etc in the back of my book). As I got older, I started drawing my own characters in the artist's style and tried formulating how they would fit into the game's story-line and what their connections would be to other characters, and from there I unconsciously was practicing character design. In junior high, I developed Dovian and a whole gang of characters and began thinking what world would they fit in, what was their story, who were they as characters, etc. I originally thought in the direction of how the story would be used for a RPG video game! What started out as a fun hobby, turned into a passion. Dovian never left my imagination; he kept reappearing over the years until I completely reinvented him in college for my grad show. At the time I was writing online and had a HUGE following (thousands). My fans were very supportive and encouraged me to write actual printed novels. It wasn't until then that I realized I could actually do something with my characters; I could write their world! From there, I began writing. I put out the first 3-4 chapters right after college graduation in Dec. 2008 and then got a full-time job which caused me to put my project on hold. After a few years, I decided I wanted to follow my dreams and take a chance. The thought of sitting at a desk job the rest of my life creating for other people wasn't exactly what I wanted to do, so I focused on the writing and creating of illustrations for my book and had The Esoteric Design written within 6 months. The past year has been spent finishing art and editing the book. Editing was the hardest part. I had to rely on others for help, which took a lot of time. Some editors just disappeared off the face of the planet. Others just weren't giving good feedback. I had some very helpful influences with the editing process and from there taught myself a LOT about the editing process. I know more now than I ever did! 
I graduated with a BFA in illustration and a specialization in children's books. Because of this and the 4 years of experience in graphic design and formatting newspapers, books, and magazines, I was capable of doing everything for the book myself. On top of writing and editing, I formatted the entire book. I did the cover, the entire inside, made all the images, headers, etc. I did the same with the Kindle, reworking the entire book into HTML. The hardest part about that was the images! I had to specify within margins and redo all of the images for web-based viewing. It was a nightmare because I don't own any formatting software, so the whole book was made in Word. And Word likes to compress everything into tiny, blotchy pixels. Needless to say, it was a frustrating but great learning experience, and I'm happy with how everything turned out. I'm currently looking into doing an audio-book as well. Because I'm a glutton for punishment...

What is the marking on Dovian's face?
That is a status tattoo. Sorcearians spend their lives learning new things. After reaching a certain level of knowledge, they receive a status. Dovian is of Scarlet status. This means he is knowledgeable in military science: genetics and hand-to-hand combat. Biologically melding with his weapon, a staff, Dovian is able to expel his energies in a magical way. So...Dovian is a warrior. There are other statuses. Gold status was given to all of the elders and those who were the first to come to Earth. Those with the Gold status were masters of all the sciences and arts. Emerald was given to those who mastered in only the arts. Violet status was reserved for military leaders and often given to the more prominent families within the race. They often became Gold later in life. Azure status (Euclid) was reserved for warriors who mastered espionage and intelligence. They were often good manipulators and master illusionists. 

Will you make The Esoteric Design into a video game? 
Since the story was originally planned out to be a video game, I think it would make for an awesome game! However, I would probably have to contact game developers about it as I really have no idea how any of that works. But I would totally be up for it. I think it'd rock as an action-adventure or RPG based game. 

How does the government and military function in The Esoteric Design?
Aria and Troy were orphans of war. Since the story takes place during a time of constant war, there are lots of children left without homes. Corporations like Bio-Tech Military Corporation take orphans and raise them within the military to become elite soldiers. These soldiers are owned by the company. There isn't necessarily a government anymore. The corporate world owns everything. Now everyone fights for ownership of business, commerce, technology and everything you can think of. If a corporation wants something, they try to buy it through the 'Stock Talks'. If things don't go as planned, then the CEOs of the corporations are likely to send out their military to fight for what they want.