[2] As the son of a U.S. Army pilot he spent much of his early years on the move, living in other countries such as Japan and Germany (he graduated from Frankfurt American High School), and in U.S. states including Alabama and Hawaii.
By age twenty-one, he had two national art representatives, and was doing work for such clients as Coca-Cola, IBM, CNN, and Columbia Pictures.
"[2] According to Shannon Appelcline, Brom "contributed the unique illustrations for Dark Sun that helped to set it apart from the other TSR games with their more typical fantasy drawings".
[4]: 325 His artwork also appeared on book covers from authors such as Michael Moorcock, Anne McCaffrey, and Terry Brooks.
[2] He has since worked as a movie concept artist, and created illustrations for comics (by DC, Chaos, Dark Horse) and computer games (for id Software, Blizzard, Sega and Activision).
[9] In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath reviewed the fantasy role-playing game Dark Sun and noted, "The art of fantasy illustrators Gerald Brom and Tom Baxa tie together this aesthetic-first high concept ... the art of Brom and Baxa distills and transmits the themes of the setting without players having to read a single word of the boxed set.
... Brom's paintings, many of which were composed before the details of the setting were decided, evoke an alien landscape that seems dry, harsh, and strangely sexy.