Category Archives: What Im Drawing

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

Drawtober 2016

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So Drawtober is complete. I was able to complete 16 drawings, which is not as many as I had hoped or planned, but as always, life gets in the way. At least it was half a month’s worth. All the drawings were completed in one sitting, each day, and primarily in Ink.

For Ink, I normally just use PITT pens, or brush pens. A few times this year I used a proper brush and ink well. And the last drawing of the month (Mary-Jane) was Ink wash for shading, which was fun. I’ll definitely have to draw more like that.

I also used Copic markers for a few of the colour pieces, and one done entirely in pencil (Ripley). You can see below for the full month’s gallery. And I’ll upload my time lapse videos to Youtube and post them here too.

Here’s the full month breakdown:

Day 27 – Mary Jane (Spider-Man)
Day 26 – break
Day 25 – Tomb Raider Lara Croft
Day 24 – break
Day 23 – Moxxi (Borderlands)
Day 22 – Catwoman & Black Cat
Day 21 – day off
Day 20 – day off
Day 19 – day off
Day 18 – day off
Day 17 – day off
Day 16 – Harley Quinn (reference)
Day 15 – Jessica Rabbit
Day 14 – games
Day 13 – Wonder Woman
Day 12 – games
Day 11 – Widowmaker (Overwatch)
Day 10 – Sally (Nightmare Before Christmas)
Day 9 – sleep
Day 8 – sleep
Day 7 – Samara (The Ring)
Day 6 – Rey (Star Wars)
Day 5 – X-23
Day 4 – Supergirl
Day 3 – Cortana (Halo)
Day 2 – Ripley (Alien)
Day 1 – Spider-Gwen

 

WHAT i’M PLAYING – Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Halo 5, and WHAT i’M DRAWING

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Over the weekend I started playing through Deus Ex Human Revolution again, to get caught up with the story before I pick up Deus Ex Mankind Divided this week.

I last played the game in 2011, and when I was going through the achievement list, I realized there were quite a few story related ones that I had missed the first time around, so I’m focusing on those this time.

Graphically the game still holds up – the faces are a bit polygonal and the facial animation is a bit off, but that could be choked up to the Xbox 360 emulation on the Xbox One.

I’m also playing through the original, and not the director’s cut. I had heard the DC adds the DLC and changes the boss fights dramatically, but I opted to not purchase the game again, since I’m just running through the story again. I’m also playing through it a bit quicker now; more of a run and gun play through, and less on the stealth side. Pistol and Tazer only though. See how this strategy holds up against the bosses.

Interesting things I’ve notices during this play through:

  • A lot of the time you’re climbing through vents to access closed off areas. These vents are kept very clean. Like, immaculate.
  • Many vehicles are parked on the side of the road, and in some of the dilapidated areas they are on fire. At no point is anyone driving these cars.
  • Nobody questions you when you move the man-hole cover and climb into the sewers, or when you are witnessed climbing scaffolding and jumping on air-conditioning vents to access the rooftops.
  • Turrets can still see you when you cross their line-of-sight, even when you’re squatting, carrying a crate to hide behind.
  • In The Hive night club in Shanghai, the bouncer won’t let you in, but you can access the building from the vent in the back. You exit the vent into the Women’s washroom. No one cares the slightest when you enter the club this way.
  • Also on this note, you can exit the club through the front door, and the bouncer doesn’t seem to notice, nor question how you got in the club in the first place.

More impressions as I progress further. I’m hoping to wrap up the game this week and pick up DE: Mankind Divided as soon as possible.

Last week I wrapped up Halo 5, which was a fun play through with ILLESTRADER. I’ll write more about that when I find the time.

I’m also trying to keep up with my drawing as much as possible, which limits my time for writing sadly. Hard to find time for 3 separate hobbies.

I recently completed a drawing of Widowmaker from the game Overwatch. She’s a sniper and I really liked her Noire skin, with the crazy techno dreadlocks. I haven’t played Overwatch. It’s an online only game with limited game modes, but lots of character types. I really like the character designs, so I’m going to make an attempt to draw a few more of the characters before moving on to new subjects.

I wasn’t entirely happy with the final product.  I initially only wanted to do black and white, but because her Noire suit is primarily black, so there wouldn’t be a lot of definition. So I decided to add some colour, but didn’t really want to spend a lot of time colouring and shading. So I stuck with the cross hatch black and white, with flat colours. Quickly dumped in a crappy background as well so the gun wasn’t floating, and voila.

I might go back and actually do a proper colouring job on this one. I know I can do better. And going forward, my goal is to try harder on backgrounds. I usually never do them, and with my comic book aspirations, they’d look pretty weird without backgrounds.

I had fun drawing her name though, with all the spider webs. 😉

You can check out more of my drawings in the arts page.

-iRogan