Category Archives: What Im Playing

Unnatural Talent

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I missed my weekend post, but I’m following through with my promised Wednesday, new comic, new art, post. And then bed before 10.

What I’m Reading

New comics, week of Nov 10th

  • Batman The Imposter #2
  • Justice League Last Ride #7
  • Ordinary Gods #5
  • A Righteous Thirst for Vengeance #2
  • Robin & Batman #1
  • Stillwater #11
  • Superman vs Lobo #2
  • Undiscovered Country #17

Undiscovered Country hit me with a surprised “to be concluded” tag on the final page, which is a huge shock that this comic is ending, if true. We’ll have to wait and see.

New comics, week of Nov 17th

  • Blue & Gold #4
  • King Spawn #4
  • The Nice House on the Lake #6
  • Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #5
  • The Walking Dead Deluxe #27
  • Batman vs Bigby #3

What I’m Drawing

Gwen Lantern

So I don’t think I’ve posted any of my Gwen Stacy series here yet, so I’ll have to make an art section for that. The story is, in February earlier this year I started a month long drawing challenge dedicated to Gwen Stacy, or more specifically Spider-Gwen. I called it the Gweniverse. I took the idea of Spider-Gwen as an alternate universe version of Spider-Man and applied that to as many different characters as I could think of. Marvel, DC, didn’t matter.

I started first with the ones that were already canon, SpiderGwen, Gwenom, Gwen Poole, and then just ran with it:

  • Gwencrawler (Night Crawler)
  • Gwenclops (Cyclops)
  • Gwentanna Gwentara (Zantanna)
  • Gwenbit (Gambit)
  • Harley Gwen (Harley Quinn)
  • Gwennernaut (Juggernaut)
  • InGwencible (Invincible)
  • Rogue-wen (Rogue)
  • Gwen 2099 (Spider-Man 2099)
  • Gwen Lantern (Green Lantern)

In February I was able to do the first 9, and then throughout the year I’ve been adding to the collection when I find some inspiration. I’ll post the gallery for next week.

#Drawtober – Wonder Woman

Still slowly making progress on last month’s Wonder Woman drawing. I’ve now inked my background, and now we are finally ready for colour.

This is, by far, the most work I’ve ever dedicated to a background on any piece I’ve done. And it was one of my goals last month when I decided to do fully realized, rendered pieces; to push myself to do backgrounds more consistently. It is one of my weaker skills and it’s something I’ll need to be able to do more when I return to working on my creator-owned comic.

I should be able to put in some real time colouring this, leading into the weekend as I still hope to get a new Stranger Than Friendship comic posted by the end of November.

As I mentioned at the top, I missed this past week’s post, but I’ll have a significant update after this coming weekend. I’ll have a lot of things to discuss. On the docket we have:

  • Grand Theft Auto Definitive Trilogy
  • Forza Horizons 5
  • and Halo Infinite Multiplayer

And bed before 10.

-iRogan

Stalemate is Victory

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Games

I finished Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and I have a few things to say.

  1. I hated the ending(s?)
  2. Two of the achievements made me very angry.
  3. I hesitate to return to the game for the DLC story expansion.

Lets start with the ending(s?). It ended with a stalemate of sorts, for me. At the end of the Eltariel campaign, there is a disagreement between you and Calebrimbor. Your ghostly host stabs you in the back, which for me was a true surprise moment, and joins forces with Eltariel. She takes the ring and together they go on to confront Sauron. Shelob saves you, luckily, from dying, and you become Undead. You raise an Undead army of your own, to confront the Witch-King in Minas Morgul.

Then, you switch, unexpectedly, and now you’re playing as Calebrimbor. You fight, defeat, and then betray Eltariel and merge with Sauron.

So there is like a stalemate, with Calebrimbor merged with Sauron in one tower, and the undead ranger at the other tower. All for the sake of balance. I understand that there’s more to the game with DLC, and the Siege Missions, but the two final boss fights just felt really sudden and un-original.

That also brings me to the two final achievements I got in the game. Both of which would have you think you would unlock through progression.

Forged By War – Unlock all Player Skills.

I had unlocked all the skills, and each skill also has 2-3 alts that you can unlock and assign or switch. I figured I’d have unlocked the achievement as soon as I unlocked the main sets of skills but it never did. Then I figured probably all the alts had to be unlocked as well, but that was a HUGE grind. But at the end of the game, this actually unlocked once I became Undead. With no real explanation.

The Stuff of Legend – Equip a full Legendary Gear set as Talion.

I unlocked this as soon as I got to play as Calebrimbor, in the final boss battle. The gear sets are locked behind collectibles and challenged, and boss frights. There’s 9 different gear sets, and 6 items per set. I had unlocked an assortment across all the sets, but as soon as I played as Calebrimbor, in the final boss fight, it unlocked automatically. So not only did I not have to work to unlock/find a full gear set throughout the game, but I didn’t even equip it as Talion. The game just did it for me as Calebrimbor.

I’ve decided to just leave the game as is. At least for now.

Will I come back to it some day to clean up some achievements and play the story expansions. Maybe.

Did I do that for the first one? No.

This week Forza Horizons 5 releases, so get ready to see lots of car photos. Ha. No Seriously. Also It Takes Two is available on the gamepass, and I’d like to play through that with the Wife.

Art

I’ve made a bit more progress with my final Drawtober piece. Flats/base colours. Super slow going, as I’ve been struggling with the background.

I have one idea which has her in the foreground on the top of some cliffs, and the background, cliffs and ocean. Open, airy, scenic. This would require quite a bit of work and rendering, and I’m not really sure I have it in me.

Another idea is simpler, black background with a light source in the center, and just a textured, reflective floor. Like inside a temple or something

What I’m Reading

So I’ve been thinking more about what I wanted to do for a comic section, and one thing I will start showcasing is my weekly pull list. I read a combination of Image, DC, and Marvel. In that order. Primarily single issues, and a few trades, if that was how my collection started with that book. I used to collect exclusively trades for years, but my shelves became very full, so going back to single issues, and boxes. Plus its adds more variety to me week, and they’re easier to consume weekly.

This week’s pull list:

Batman Reptilian #5
Crossover #9
The Me You Love in the Dark #4
Radiant Black #9
Spawn #323
The Walking Dead Deluxe #26
Mirka Andolfo’s Sweet Paprika #4
Wonder Girl #4
(not pictured) Dark Knights of Steel #1
(not pictured) The Human Target #1

Going forward, this section will be dedicated to Wednesdays, as that’s comic book day, and will help break up the week.

And speaking of trades, I currently have 130!!! unread trade paperback/graphic novels on my shelf. Plus about 20 large format collections, like omnibuses/collected versions. So I’m going to challenge myself to start picking away at this huge backlog. Like a weekly challenge to read 7 in a week. Sunday – Saturday. And at the end of the week, maybe include it in my Wednesday post, my read list, and if I succeeded or not :p.

See you then.

Be Good.
iRogan
G 305226

Aliens, Orcs, and Zombies Oh My!

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Games:

Back 4 Blood has been the reliable venture in our latest coop game nights, but its hard to say if I like it or not. Its fun, and the card/desk system adds a needed variable to the game-play, but we haven’t made much progress really. I can say for certain that I have played through the first 4 levels of Act 1 a handful of times, and started the 2nd set, level 1. And that’s it. It seems like every time we’ve sat down to play it, we’re introducing a new team member to the party and it would be unfair to them to jump into the middle of it. But the game is also setup in a way that you can kind of jump into any level and you don’t really need much story explanation. But the levels are harder without your stacked deck building up, so its almost worth playing from the start again as a new run to see how far you can get.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite we beat. I don’t think we’ll be looking back either. The last 3 levels are probably the best but the ending is so underwhelming. Spoiler: you see the queen and you run away. The End. The game-play is fun and hectic at times, fighting off waves and waves of aliens, big and small. But after the story there’s a horde mode, and then replay the story again and again? To unlocked emotes, and cosmetics. And level up your guns. Maybe try a different class? My game time is so limited, I’d rather just uninstall and move on. Maybe there’ll be DLC expansions down the road.

Shadow of War: I’m still plugging away at Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. About half way through. Just fought off the Balrog. Its a nice change of pace from the other coop games. I am looking forward to its completion though as I’m eager to try Watch Dogs 3 – Legion next. A proper new-gen game to finally play on the Series X. Assassins Creed Valhalla is lurking in the sidelines as well.

Art:

My original plan from #drawtober was 5 completed pieces. It will actually be 3.

Magik, Supergirl, and now Wonder Woman. Just a few days ago was a Wonder Woman celebration day, so I’m posting just the line art, and then next week I’ll add the full colour/background piece.

Comic Shout-out:

CROWDED. Picked up Vol 1 and 2 of this series.

“Ten minutes in the future, the world runs on an economy of job shares and apps, including Reapr: a crowdfunding platform to fund assassinations. Charlie Ellison leads a quiet, normal life until she’s suddenly targeted by a million-dollar Reapr campaign. Hunted by all of Los Angeles, Charlie hires Vita, the lowest-rated bodyguard on the Dfend app. As the campaign picks up speed, they’ll have to figure out who wants Charlie dead before the campaign’s 30 days—or their lives—are over.” Seemed like a fun read. 🙂

Be Good.

iRogan

Back 4 Blogs

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Welcome back to the working week.

Games:

There’s a new game to play and it’s Back 4 Blood. We tried it for a bit over the weekend to get the hang of it. Made by TurtleRock as a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead. It is VERY much like Left 4 Dead, but with a new card-based progression system to augment your play-through. The game’s campaign looks like a decent length and quite challenging from my initial attempt. Haven’t tried the PvP yet. I should have more impressions next week after I’ve had the chance to spend more time within the game.

Art:

Drawtober week 2. Supergirl

I missed last week but the week before was Week 2 of Drawtober and I was able to complete SuperGirl as shown above. I didn’t get any drawing down last week but hopefully will have something for this Friday. I don’t know if I’ll have the energy/motivation to continue my original plan of fully rendered drawings. Maybe one more before the month-end, but I think I’ll focus on something less time consuming and draining. Which brings me to Pouchtober.

Such a funny concept. May try to get a few of these out before the end of the month. Summon my inner Leifeld. Simpler, quick pieces. Lots of pouches. No feet. Pencil or ink. Minor shading. B&w either way.

Comics:

What I’m reading: The Fall by Jared Muralt. “After just losing his wife, one father will have to face a world in freefall; shaken to its core by an economic, social, political and health crisis without precedent. Facing seemingly unreal and very unexpected dangers, he will do whatever it takes to protect his loved ones in a country on the brink of collapse. In this internationally acclaimed series, Jared Muralt not only tells the story of one family struggling to survive, but also questions the very reasons that brought mankind to this apocalypse.”

It’s a pretty dark book. Dire circumstances. Basically take Covid scenarios at their worst and turn them apocalyptic. But he started writing it and working on it in 2016 having no idea what 2020 had in store.

Achievement of the Week:

Be good.

IROGAN

I Think They Like Me

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A quiet week with little progression. But some weeks call for a little down time.

Games: We played some more Aliens: Fireteam Elite this week. We’ve passed the halfway way point of the story. One of our players has already progressed through the story once, unlocked the final character and levelled up quite significantly. I think for this reason alone we’ve been able to make steady progress without much grinding, as the game ramps up the difficulty with some pretty serious wave-based survival sections. The gameplay has been enjoyable, but from a story perspective, it’s mostly told through radio chatter and the initial loading screen before the level starts. So there’s not really a lot to absorb and it’s easy to tune out.

AOTW: Achievement of the week goes to, unsurprisingly, A:FE. I always find achievements that ask you to fail in some way to be kind of funny. “I Think They Like Me” asks you to get pounced or grappled 5 times in the same mission. Getting pounced or grappled takes a pretty good chunk of health off, so without help this can easily end your run quick. Early on in the game this is quite doable organically, as you are running down the halls a large alien can be waiting for you around a corner. Later on, with the right sensors you can see the aliens waiting in advance so its easy to avoid. I intentionally went for this, running ahead of our group so I would get pounced knowing my team was there to back me up. It was also a failed run anyways as we were not adequately prepared for the final sections of the level and got overrun.

Comic: Outside of playing video games I made a little more progress in my Stranger Than Friendship webcomic. The latest comic is focusing on Surgeon Simulator and the results are pretty funny, if I do say so myself. Here’s a little preview, should be able complete it this weekend as I’m currently not at home:

“Cruz, where are your clothes?”

Drawtober: As I mentioned above, this week I won’t actually be at home as I’m house-sitting. This has put a twist into my drawtober plans as I will not in fact be able to get as ahead as I wished. I will share my first week’s post though, which I will be publishing on Friday. And then every Friday going forward I will be showing off a new coloured piece. Hopefully. That’s the plan.

Colour gradient tests
Looks good in print.

Anyways, a small update this week.

Be good. Stay safe.

-iRogan