Category Archives: What Im Playing

Time to Spare

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Have you ever said you were going to do something, and then didn’t actually follow through with it? That’s me, but only when it comes to my own projects, aspirations, … and bed time.

Last week I posted the line art for my Tracer piece with the promise of colour. Which I did (see: below). At the same time I also told myself that this would be the last drawing of the year, to give my hands a break, catch up on some sleep, and charge the creative batteries.That lasted all of one day.

What I’m Drawing

After finishing Tracer I jumped right back into it with another drawing: Jinx from the game League of Legends, or more recently, Netflix’s Arcane.

I’m really please with how these two have turned out. Definitely ending the year on a high note. With Tracer I started working with line colours and adding more texture effects, such as the diamond patter on her tights. Fun experimentation. With Jinx, I was confident in my pencil layer that I didn’t even do an ink layer, just jumped right into colours. Also tried a different technique with colouring. Typically will put down base, flat colours, and then start adding the shading and lighting and rendering. This time I just painted over the whole drawing and started rendering. Different PS brushes, more painting style. Looser. And I’m really happy with the results. Also played with some sprays on the skin and clothes and grain/noise to add a more textured feel to it. Surely knocked off a few hours of processing time off the final product, eliminating Ink pass and Flats pass.

I think next I will draw Zoe Kravitz Catwoman from the upcoming Batman movie.

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What I’m Playing

Quiet week in games as we’re getting closer to Holi-daze. If I’m not drawing then I’m doing some family activity. The wife and I played our first It Takes Two session last Tuesday and the game is a lot of fun. Unfortunately we are playing through her PC, and the game plays through the EA Origin Game Pass and not Xbox, so no achievements are unlocked for this play through, so I might have to play through it again with Illestrader. The game is fun, each level introduces a new co-op mechanic that tests our capabilities of playing the game as a couple. I’ve been downloading the twitch streams after the VOD goes live with the hope of turning them into a highlights or funny moments type of video for YouTube to help her promote her stream (when I find time). Also I’ll be making her some emotes for her channel.

Speaking of Illestrader, we played some more Borderlands 3 in our co-op game night. Maybe I’ll add the two Borderlands Sirens to my drawing queue. Maya and Lilith would be fun to draw.

Played a bit more Watch Dogs 3, and Rain on Your Parade came out with a DLC and unlocked some achievements there.

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What I’m Reading

Last weeks indies finally arrived so I was able to grab those, which I’m thankful for, and then this week’s pull:

Adventureman #7
Batman the Imposter #3
BRZRKR #6
Robin & Batman #2
The Walking Dead #29
Wonder Girl #6
King Spawn #5

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I think that catches us up on the week that was. Another busy week ahead before Christmas, and some not-so-relaxing 4 days off work.

I’ll try to get my “Game Review Done Quickly” post in before the New Year, where I quickly write about every game I played in 2021. I didn’t finish mine from last year…still sitting in the Drafts folder :(.

Happy Holidays,

G309,551
iRogan

One For The Road

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How ’bout them Game Awards? Guardians of the Galaxy taking home the surprise “Best Narrative” award. And It Takes Two taking home Game of the Year. Most impressive.

The wife and I plan to play this game on her Twitch channel during our couple’s gaming nights. (Typically Tuesdays). twitch.tv/cro0kedj. We played through Morkredd last time, and I have the VOD downloaded and plan on editing that into a fun “highlights” video for Youtube.

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What I’m Drawing
Speaking of the wife… she said I’m not allowed to draw anymore Gwen Stacy. And I see her point. 15 variations is a bit much. I’ll be sure to draw more next year though 😉 .

In the meantime, I drew Tracer, from the game Overwatch, to add to my collection of those characters. So far I’ve drawn Widowmaker, Moira, Brigitte, Mercy, Sombra, D.Va and now Tracer.

Colour version coming soon.

As I continually add and reference my art, I should probably just create a dedicated section for it. With proper folders. Project for the new year.

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What I’m Playing
Played Unpacking for the achievements. 1000G in about an hour. A little bit of Dirt 5. Rain on your Parade has DLC launching next week which I’ll be playing through. Played a little bit Halo Infinite Multiplayer, but have not tried the campaign yet, now that it has released. It’s on the short list but after recently starting up GTA 3 and Watch Dogs Legion, those two are my immediate priority before starting anything new.

Watch Dog has been pretty fun. It is definitely a nice looking game, and I’m getting the hang of the team setup, where you have multiple agents to pick from. Its kind neat actually because they all just roam around the city, and act almost like fast travel points if you don’t mind swapping.

In the co-op zone we’ve started up Borderlands 3. I’ve always loved the Borderlands games. Played 1 and 2 thoroughly, including the DLC. The Pre-Sequel I didn’t quite finish. But 3 has been been pretty fun so far in co-op.

And a huge bonus: it comes with a Photo Mode. And not just any photo mode. One that plays in-real time with your online co-op buddies.

Also tried out the Matrix Awaking Unreal Engine 5 tech demo that was announced at the game awards. It’s kind neat. An impressive showcase of what the new UE5 can do. Obviously limited in scope. Its an open world city where you can walk around and drive showing off the lighting and damage body engine, but not much beyond just looking pretty. The initially opening sequent is mostly just quick-time events to show off the particle effects and visuals, but it is all on rails to hide the limitations of the demo.

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What I’m Reading

Crossover #10
Dark Knights of Steel #2
Soul Plumber #3
The Walking Dead Deluxe #28

Quieter week this week on the comics front as I actually only got 2/4 of my expected pull due to Diamond delays getting the indie books in. Hopefully they’ll arrive for next week.

Achievement of the Week
Borderlands 3: Tips Appreciated (15G)
Tipped Moxxi

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More holiday shopping on the horizon, and a few more weeks of work. A couple more snowfalls and Spider-Man: No Way Home to look forward to as well. Festive times.

Happy Holidays.

G309,401
iRogan

Dusk til Dawn

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Oh, how the hours turn into days, and days turn into weeks. Busy just livin’, but where does the time go?

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What I’m Drawing

I always like to start with this category first because it makes me feel accomplished. Everything else I do is just a time-wasting hobby, or cost a lot of money (see: What I’m Reading 😉 )

More GwenVerse additions this week. And this will be the final two of the year. I swear. We have Silk Gwen, which is just a SILK variation; not as original but I was challenged to do another drawing with her on pointe. I struggled with a few different poses for a few days but inevitably settled on this one to make it work. I may go back and try another pass at the colour to see if I can switch it up. Maybe the blue will work? And also Grifter – GwenC.A.Ts. I couldn’t come up with a witty Gwen name for Grifter that didn’t sound dumb. So instead I decided to change the team name. GwenC.A.Ts. Now I have an excuse to make more Gwen variations from that team 😉 .

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What I’m Playing

Not much in the way of gameplay over the last week. Although I did quickly try out the new Game Pass addition: Townscaper. Not really a game, more like a toy / tool box to play around in. You basically just plop down blocks that turn into houses. You can make some pretty cool, colourful cities. Either way it was a quick 1000G.

Also I’ve been playing Dirt 5. Playing through the DLC races. Really just to check it off my list/queue so that I can focus on Forza Horizons 5 instead. I don’t like have too many same-genre games on the go.

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What I’m Reading

The Department of Truth #14
Human Target #2
The Me You Love in the Dark #5
SPAWN #324
Wonder Girl #5
The Scumbag #11
Fine/Print Vol 1 (not pictured)
DIE Vol 4 (not pictured)

So I was partially right about Decorum last week. The main titled comic is ending but a sequel series is replacing it. No word on the creative team, if Hickman will continue writing? I’ll have to look it up.

Also sadly, The Me You Love in the Dark ending after #5. Just a short brief series, probably better served as a trade / graphic novel. Its been a fun series with gorgeous art.

It’s getting close to that holiday time, house lights and trees are going up. Time to sit by the fire eating cookies with milk.

Happy Holidays.

G 308,341
iRogan

Working Remote

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I did it! Finally finished the Wonder Woman #drawtober piece I have been working on over the last month. Well into #drawvember, and almost #drawcember. Even though those aren’t real and I just made them up.

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What I’m Drawing

This has gotta be, probably, the most complex, complete piece I’ve done to date. I’ve always done the pin-up style characters but rarely dabble in backgrounds. The point of #drawtober this year was to push myself when working with backgrounds. That’s why I only set out initially to do a handful of drawings. My wrestling comic has and will continue to require backgrounds, so its one area I need to continue to improve in. Push the comfort zone.

Now I just need to find room on my wall for another framed poster.

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What I’m Reading

Sticking with the art for a bit, Marvel announced the official GwenVerse. Issue #1 starting in January 2022 I believe.

I mentioned in previous posts about Spider-Gwen and how I had started drawing a bunch of different Spider-Gwen variations starting earlier this yeah in February.

I’ve created the page where I’ve added them here: Spider-Gwen

It’s pretty cool that they’ve decided to make it a whole universe. Excited to see how it turns out, and to see their variations.

And in other comic news, my weekly trip:

Batman Reptilian #6
DC vs. Vampires #2
Decorum #8
Echolands #4
Gunslinger Spawn #2
Sweet Paprika #5
Radian Black #10

Decorum definitely feels like it might be the end of the series, or maybe its just a bit bigger than normal and required different binding as it is bound like a very thin trade. We’ll see. The series promised a lot in scope but I feel hasn’t really gone anywhere, and is confusing to follow. It’s been inconsistent too. Starting back in March 2020, now a few months shy of 2 years and only 8 issues.

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What I’m Playing

It’s been a little quiet on the games front as the last week I was focused on finishing Wonder Woman. I’ve been playing a bit more Watch Dogs Legion, and a little Halo Multiplayer. Tried out the Fiesta playlist mode working towards progression in the latest Event. This week I should be able to spend a bit more time as a I take a creative break from drawing to recharge.

Sliding into Monday like…

Be Good.
iRogan

Peeker’s Disadvantage

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“Back smacked” with a ton of games and gameplay this past week, as we gotta talk about Forza Horizons 5’s awesomeness, GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition’s not-so-awesomeness, Halo Infinite shadow dropped, and maybe a touch of Watch Dogs Legion; so let’s just jump right into it.

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What I’m Playing

Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite multiplayer dropped on us this week, releasing early on the Xbox 20th Anniversary. This was just the Multiplayer component and not the campaign. And its basically the beta, only a full release where the developers are asking the players to treat it like a beta as they are still ironing out bugs and server load. They are expecting the player count to drastically increase around the proper launch date of Dec 8, but wanting to surprise players too. I’m sure EA is none-too-pleased to have the early competition to BF2042.

I guess because the game hasn’t officially launched, Xbox is like “no achievements for you!”. But also, sure, you can have achievements.

600G are included with the multiplayer component, 50 or so, so I’ve been burning through those as I can. A chunk are training/tutorial related, and then customization, and then gameplay.

From what I’ve read, a large chunk can actually be unlocked when playing on the bot list lobbies, making them significantly easier to acquire. I won’t argue that.

Impressions: It’s fine. It’s Halo. It’s what you’d expect.

Forza Horizons 5

As you’d expect, not reinventing the wheel here, Forza Horizons is great. Another meaningful step forward for the franchise but nothing new, aside from the locale. It is amusing to me, to see that they were able to finally pull off the “seamless multiplayer integration” which they touted for 4, but weren’t actually able to pull off.

Impressions: The game is beautiful and plays amazingly, performance mode or quality mode.

Grand Theft Auto Trilogy – The Definitive Edition

Definitely not definitive. But still fun. Still a nostalgic trip back in time. From my initial experience, aside form the awful rain effects (since fixed), it actually looks quite good. The lighting is impressive in the evenings, standing amongst the vehicle headlights. And the game is just as quirky and goofy as I recall. Currently playing through III.

I’m just going to tackle these as a campaign playthrough, and not going to go after 100% completion. Just focus on the bulk of the achievements, but I don’t need to find all the hidden packages or anything. Ain’t no one got time for that!

“What are you plans for the weekend?

Well, I have a family… so I don’t make plans.”

Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion? Really? Where did this come from? Well… see… I beat ME: Shadow Of War, and needed another open-world game to fill the void. I wasn’t ready to tackle Assassin’s Creed Valhalla yet. So… Watch Dogs? Right? But GTA is open world. Yeah I get it, but I started this before that came out and now I have two on-going and I don’t want to talk about it.

Watch Dogs Legion has been pretty fun. I’m not too sure how I feel about the “no main protagonist” angle, but it works with the whole DedSec movement; No leader, No Problem, etc.

They brought back Aidan Pierce as a paid-for, playable character, so I suppose I could just play the whole campaign with him, but he also has his own expansion, so we’ll leave him to that.

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It’s unfortunate that with the recent batch of releases, quite a few games on my list have fallen by the wayside. Far Cry New Dawn, The Ascent, Back 4 Blood, Surgeon Simulator 2. Wreckfest and Dirt 5. Hell, even GTA V was popular all over again amongst my group for all of twelve minutes.

This is why I don’t like starting too many things at once, as it’s so easy to just forget and move on. Sad, really.

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Achievement of the Week

Halo Infinite. You guessed it.

Working from home has its advantages.

You can drop everything at 12pm, nuke some food and load into some afternoon Halo.

It’s even better when your friends are also working form home. Talk about needy.

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Be Good
-iRogan