Tag Archives: Drawing

Silence is Golden

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Welcome back, we missed you. A little bit of an absence here and there but at least I’ve been productive. Just not here…

My last update, from what I can recall was in November, post Drawtober. Since then I’ve played a lot of games. I’ve drawn a lot of pictures. I’ve been writing…elsewhere – and I feel guilty about that. But enough of the delays. Let’s talk about the last (gulp) 5 months.

We’ll start with the games first:

Starfield.
We first things first. I beat Starfield. Clocking in at just over 90 hours, finishing in December (started in September). 740/1000 gamerscore. I didn’t do all the completionist type stuff like visiting all the planets or Star Systems. I didn’t reach the max level or anything like that.

Spoiler warning: I didn’t even play any further than stepping through the stargate and becoming a Starborne. There is apparently an expansion coming, and I’ll step back in then, but for now I can comfortably say I’m done.

I played and beat Crysis 1 Remastered, in one sitting. 10 hours, 820/1000 GS. I still have two and three of the trilogy to play as well.

Illestrader and I beat Redfall, finally. 18 hours. 617/1000GS. I’m really annoyed that this game had some uneven GS achievements, and I’ll either need to play with other people, or go through the story again to complete those, but I’m honestly not interested. The game was decent overall as a co-op shooter. I’m glad I played through it as it had some good ideas.

Illestrader and I also went through Outriders and the Worldslayer expansion. I had previously gone through this game, initially in co-op but then finished it alone. With the replay I was able to 100% the main game and play the expansion. Finished 1260/1305 after 56 hours. The last two achievements will require more hours of grinding and I’m not interested in that.

I started playing Baldur’s Gate 3 with the wife. We played about 8-10 hours which is not a lot. She complained that I was holding her back – not making decisions in combat fast enough, so we’re not playing that anymore. I might still go through it some time. But I have a lot of other games so chances are low.

Finished Star Wars Jedi Survivor, 48 hours, 885/1000 GS. The remaining 3 achievements are collectible types and completionist stuff. Great game overall. Very good looking and fun combat.

Currently working my way through Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and nearing the end. 92 hours, 70% done the main story and already wrapped up one expansion. I want to wrap this game up before I tackle Horizon Forbidden West, which released for the PC a few weeks ago.

Alongside AC Valhalla, I am also playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake on the PC. I recently purchased this as it was on sale. It is my first FF game I’ve ever played, and for the most part it’s been a lot of fun. Even resulted in a Tifa drawing or 3, for obvious reasons ;).

I jumped into Helldivers II for a bit when it released. And I play a random game here and there and continue to follow the news about it. Fun satire game with good mechanics. Even spawned a Stranger Than Friendship comic idea that I might work on.

Now that Redfall and Outriders are out of the way, the next co-op game Illestrader and I have moved to is the Saints Row reboot. So far it is nothing great. Ugly city, feels like there hasn’t been much modernization over the last versions. Which is a shame. But it could be fun in co-op so we’ll see.

Ok, on to drawings. Over the past few months I’ve put out quite a few, which I’ll share below.

Here’s the list:

  • Wonder woman
  • Huntress
  • Black Canary
  • Fallout Vault Girl
  • Psylocke
  • X-23
  • Captain Marvel
  • Jessica Rabbit
  • Poison Ivy
  • Harley Quinn
  • Inked Red Sonja
  • AndrAIa
  • Inked Hawkgirl
  • Rose Wilson
  • Birds of Prey
  • Widowmaker (incomplete)
  • Lara Croft (incomplete)
  • Red Sonja
  • Tifa
  • Red Sonja again…
  • Spider-Gwen
  • Nightcrawler

Lastly, in January, I started writing about comics more, in a different format. I looked at my shelf and it dawned on me that I had accumulated over 200 graphic novels that I had yet to read (did a full count and I have 650 graphic novels / hardcover collections in total, and currently counting my single issue books which is 1500+). So I gave myself a homework project to read 1 every week. 52 a year, to help work down those numbers, because it’s not like I’m going to stop buying new ones. So since the first week in January, posting a new “review” every week, over on Substack. It’s been a rewarding venture thus far, and I can show proof that I am indeed reducing the amount of unread books.

https://andrewrogan.substack.com

Alright, that’s all for now.
Rogan
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Why are you like this?

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Hello. Why do I lose track of time?

Colour Wheel Challenge
Where in Valhalla am I?
Readings
Screens For Days

//

So my last update was back in May. I shared Cortana and a Star Wars character, Darth Talon, and a WIP of Red Sonja. I was hoping I’d have more, but I sort of got hung up on the Red Sonja drawing. It wasn’t looking right, something was off. So I took a break. A few weeks went by without motivation so instead of trying to pick it up again or starting it a-new, I moved onto something completely new. DC’s Flatline:

A fun, fairly quick drawing from June to hopefully spark something. I still intend to go back to the Red Sonja either to pick up where I left off to see if I can force it, or just start over fresh.

Following Flatline, I saw a new Twitter challenge focused on a colour wheel. 8 colours, and to draw a character for each colour that represents their overall colour scheme.

I’m halfway through the initial stages of getting the characters in, not coloured or inked yet. My theme is female or gender-bent DC Batman villains, and so far I have Scarecrow, Firefly, The Riddler, and Killer Frost. It is an interesting challenge to try and get the characters fitting into each pie piece. Hopefully next update should have all 8 characters, and hopefully started on ink and colour.

I think for the remaining 4, I have Catwoman, Talia al Ghul, Two-Face, and Deadshot.

//

In the game zone, ILLESTRADER and I finally wrapped Gotham Knights, and we’ve started Wolfenstein Youngblood to mix it up a bit, and playing NFS Underworld online.

I actually started playing a bit more NFS and starting to get a hang of the NFS arcade style again, and I like the art style they’ve added. Cell shaded animated characters and special car effects, but hyper realistic cars. Kind of a neat merger of styles.

Tried out Biomutant but I don’t think I’ll see it through, and I think that goes with The Witcher III… It’s just not really grabbing me. And so instead, I’ve started on Assassins Creed Valhalla. The Assassin series are really what I like in an RPG and they’ve never really disappointed, so I am much happier spending my precious gaming hours in this Viking world. After that though, I may return to one of the prior games. But there’s new ones too. Like Star Wars Survivor on my shortlist.

I also wrapped up a smaller title in Planet of Lana, from Gamepass. I find these artsy side-scroller puzzle/platform games to be really enjoyable as they are shorter, pretty, and just focus on platforming puzzles, so not a lot of deep mechanics or details to worry about.

In other gaming updates, I finished another episode of our Halo Infinite Co-Op Misadventures:

//

Just finished reading SITHRA Vol 1-6, by Jason Brubaker, which I feel like I’ve been sitting on for ages. He’s a great illustrator/cartoonist and I will always follow his work.

Also picked up the manga Wolverine: SNIKT! by Tsutomu Nihei. Speaking of Wolverine, they (Marvel) recently announced they he’ll be taking on the Ghost Rider mantle for a stint, going by Hellverine, which is awesome in my opinion, and gives me some drawing inspiration. Kind of like the Gweniverse idea, but Ghost Rider universe. And another recent pickup: Deluxe Edition of CODA. By Simon Spurrier/Matias Bergara after seeing it recently advertised.

Comics Recently Wrapped:
Junkyard Joe
Ordinary Gods
Batgirls
Vanish

//

On the big TV and small, still watching The Witcher as season 3 debuts. Also watching Severance on Apple TV+. Watched Extraction 1 (again) and Extract 2.

Biggest screen over the last month I’ve watched Fast X, Across the Spiderverse, The Flash, Transformer, and Indian Jones.

I think that catches us up from mid-May to early July. I intend to continue with my colour wheel, so I should have another update on that soon. Also a Hellverine, as that sounds good.

Boom.
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iRogan

Spoilt for Choice

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Hello.

Not so drawing
What I’m playing
Reading is fundamental
On the screen

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It’s been a little quiet on the Rogan front as of late, mostly dealing with my dad’s estate, finalizing those related matters, which has kept me occupied and distracted. Condo cleaning and staging and selling. Etc.

So I haven’t put stylus to screen since finishing the Aloy poster, last month. But now that that is mostly dealt with I have been feeling the urge. Maybe I’ll start some doodling tonight to see what happens. Next weekend is the last of the move, and then I should be feeling a little more motivated.

My Stranger Than Friendship comic has now been dormant for a year. I discontinued the Pro plan of that website as I felt I was paying to much for something I wasn’t upkeeping. So we’ll see what happens in a few weeks when that expires, and it reverts to the free model, without plugins. I do still plan to work on that comic, along with all the other ideas I have swimming around. But it’s hard to find the time and energy.

//

I’ve been steadily progressing in Gotham Knights every co-op Wednesday, starting to get better at the combat, gear crafting and city navigation. I play as Batgirl, and I’ve unlocked the cape finally, through the Knighthood progression, for traversal, and quick-travel locations are becoming more plentiful as we unlock the map. The way the story progression is structured is pleasing, where the main story and side missions are broken up into case files, and you can focus on whatever you want, in whichever order you wish. Or you can spend the evening fighting street crims or finding collectibles. And then at the end of each play session, you can just turn into the Watchtower and wrap-up your night.

Been a few weeks since I stepped foot into the Witcher III lands, but I’ve been making progress in Hi-Fi Rush, which is an attack-on-the-beat style action game with platforming elements. It has funny dialogue and an enjoyable story that’s PG enough for my son to watch me play. It’s also very colourful.

In the odd evenings, I’ve also been playing NHL 23, and on the odd nights that friends are online, we’re playing Turbo Golf Racing. Season 3 just unlocked and it has some new interesting maps.

//

I picked up Zoe Thorogood’s previous book, The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott, and I have that in my queue. But along with my regular weekly comics, I read through Bitch Planet (Image) Vol 1 and 2 which is where it appears to end, unfinished. There was a side-stories collection that came out afterwards, but not a continuation of the story. I’ve now started on Middlewest (Imaged), by Skottie Young and Jorge Corona. I’ve been slowing going through my TP backlog, and I really enjoy Corona’s art, and Skottie’s writing. I’ve been on a bit of Skottie kick lately, having read TWIG and the duo’s most recent collaboration The Me You Love In The Dark (Image), so, figured I’d read their earlier work.

Guess it’s been a while since I recorded what I’m actually picking up on a weekly basis. Its always fun going through this list, to see what’s new, what’s ended, so here goes:

  • The Amazing Spider-Man (2022 – present)
  • The Ambassadors (2023 – present)
  • Batgirls (2021 – present)
  • Batman & the Joker: The Deadly Due (2022-2023)
  • Batman (2023 – present) Zdarsky run
  • Black Cloak (2023 – present)
  • Clear (2023)
  • Danger Street (2022 – present)
  • Dark Knights of Steel (2021 – present)
  • The Dead Lucky (2022 – present)
  • Deadpool (2022 – present)
  • The Forged (2023 – present)
  • Gunslinger Spawn (2021 – present)
  • Hulk (2021 – 2023) Cates/Ottley run
  • Junkyard Joe (2022 – 2023)
  • King Spawn (2021 – present)
  • Local Man (2023 – present)
  • Love Everlasting (2022 – present)
  • Nemesis Reloaded (2023 – Present)
  • Nocterra (2021 – present)
  • Once Upon a Time at the End of the World (2022 – present)
  • Ordinary Gods (2021 – present)
  • Phantom Road (2023 – present)
  • Public Domain (2022 – present)
  • Radiant Black (2021 – present)
  • Radiant Pink (2022 – present)
  • The Department of Truth (2020 – present)
  • The Riddler: Year One (2022 – present)
  • Rogue Sun (2022 – present)
  • The Scorched (2021 – present)
  • Spawn (1992 – present)
  • Stillwater (2020 – 2023)
  • Undiscovered Country (2019 – present)
  • Vanish (2022 – present)
  • The Walking Dead Deluxe (2020 – present)
  • Wynd (2020 – present)

So there’s a few Spawn Universe titles in there, a few titles tied to the Massive-verse. I also tend to follow artists, or writers. So I have some Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Chip Zdarksy, Donny Cates, Jeff Lemire. And then some of the stapes, like Spider-Man.

//

  • The Witcher S2
  • Ted Lasso S3
  • Ghosted
  • 65
  • Dungeons & Dragons

//

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That’s all for this month. Speak soon.
iRogan

Do It Yourself

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This year one of my goals is to colour more. I find I do a lot of detailed, inked, pin-ups, but then leave it at that. I always say I’ll go back and colour it but instead I just move on to the next drawing. I suspect this is because I colour infrequently enough, that the idea of it is daunting, so I always put it off. I’ve also lapsed on the Stranger Than Friendship comic for almost a full year now if I don’t get a new one out before April. I just need to sit down and think of some ideas. I did have one ages ago regarding Wordle, but I fear that fad has passed. Maybe I’ll do it just to get it out of my system.

So yeah, back to colouring – I think doing the colour step more regularly will help keep those skills sharpened, and allow me to work more efficiently as I continue to improve. And to make the idea of it less daunting. And less time spent on the actual figure/ink steps, so I don’t burn out.

With that, since this is the first update this year, I’ll share what I’ve done, in order:

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What I’m Drawing

Fenyx Rising

I started this year playing Immortals Fenyx Rising (more on that below in the gaming updates) and I really enjoyed the art style, so I kicked off the first drawing of the year with Fenyx herself. This version is her most basic starting gear before I even realized the many, many, different customization options available. I do want to colour this piece, but I may go back to the gear design first (there’s so many more ideas).

Lollipop Chainsaw
The Gwen Who Laughs

Another quick drawing, in Lollipop Chainsaw. And a work-in-progress update of The Gwen Who Laughs. As it had been a while since my last Spider-Gwen variant I figured it was time (my wife would say never again is too soon), and the idea of a Batman Who Laughs version was really intriguing to me. Very fetish, latex look. Corset and belts. Very harlequin type look. Could pass for a Harley Quinn variant instead almost. It was after struggling with this WIP that I decided to take a break and focus on more colour for a bit.

Modern day Miss Bravo
Mercedes Mone
Supergirl

Gender bent Johnny Bravo. Modern day Miss Bravo if you will. There’s actual an episode where Johnny Bravo does get turned into a lady so that he knows what it feels like to be hit on incessantly.

Sasha Banks / Mercedes Mone. Former WWE wrestler who made her debut recently in New Japan.

And Supergirl. Got excited after watching the most recent Flash movie trailer, with Michael Keaton and the reveal of the new Supergirl.

So yeah, colour. A little less focus on the ink outlines. After the sketch is cleaned up, I basically just jumped right into colour. And a simple background. Supergirl probably has the most detail as I did a semi-rough ink version to go with it. The other big change is I am working 100% in Photoshop for these which I don’t typically do. I usually sketch and ink in CLIP and then move over to PS if I need to for colour. But it felt kind of refreshing to stick with the one program and explore some new brushes. Hopefully more to come.

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What I’m Playing

Immortals Fenyx Rising: A very solid adventure game, very much like Zelda Breath of the Wild. In art style and gameplay. This is the game that’s kept me the most busy between January – February.

The game is a very vibrant soft coloured game and there are lots of different arena and puzzle style challenge rooms to mix up the standard-type combat. Ability to fly and ride a horse for traversal. And the collectibles usually involve some sort of challenge puzzle as well. Story is decent, and a good length – a humorous take on the Olympus Gods and Titans stories. Basically a big evil has been released and has turned everyone to stone and taken away the godly powers. Zeus and Prometheus are the two narrators of the story. Prometheus is more of the lead storyteller, and Zeus provides his colour commentary. Telling the story of how this mortal, Fenyx, will save the day. Combat is fairly easy to understand once you get used to the light attack and strong attack button mapping.

As I mentioned above, there is a lot of customization options with the gear you unlock throughout. Each gear item has its own perks, etc, but you can always change the look of that gear while it’s equipped to another style, if you wanted to stick to a theme, but needed the perks.

Roughly 40hrs to beat the story, but I didn’t stick around to finish all the various dungeons, or DLC packs.

Returnal: Returnal which was a PS5 launch title exclusive was recently ported to PC and I wanted to give it a try. I’m not a big fan of rogue-like games. But I thought I’d give it a shot.

I understand the appeal of the genre, and this game is gorgeous, and from a die-repeat-die-repeat perspective it’s not actually that bad. It is, however, difficult, and that was a turn-off. I understand that this genre does require a certain level of difficulty to ensure the player improves and advances and unlocks new stuff, but I unfortunately don’t have the time to dedicate to a game like this when I have so many others in my queue. A friend invested over 100 hours into the grind, and still hasn’t “finished” the story. That’s just not my style. So, I am content with the fact that I did “trial” it, but it’s not for me.

Somerville: A quick 4-hour game, like Limbo, or Inside. Same idea, with the puzzle mechanics that allow progression. A cool alien invasion story too. And very cool looking – I really liked the art direction with this one. And its a little bit more 3D level design than those of its kind. Which made it a little bit clunky to play, but still fun.

Far Cry 6: Oh man, finally, finally, knocked this story out in co-op. There’s one thing that can be said about playing in co-op with ILLESTRADER, and that’s when we start a game, we know it’ll take like 6 months to finish. Since we only get a few hours per week, if we’re lucky, and that if we play that game. Sometimes we switch it up, like jumping into Halo Co-op campaign, for example. But it feels good to say we finished the campaign. I think our next outing is Gotham Knights, but we’ll wait for the next sale. In the meantime, we’ll play through some of the DLC in FC6 and some more achievement collecting.

//

What I’m Reading

  • Less: A Novel
  • Grayson: Agent 37 Omnibus

What I’m Watching

  • The Last of Us (HBO)
  • Andor

Be good.
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-iRogan

Most Wanted

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Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy has me hooked. I’m trying to complete at least one chapter a night as I steadily make my way through the game. Hoping to wrap it up by the end of the year.

The game is a fun play through, with solid writing. And besides that actual story writing that drives the narrative, there’s just a lot of dialogue that is mostly background noise between crew mates. You really get the impression that this crew has been together for a long time and their banter just sounds natural. I stepped away from the computer at one point while the characters were just sitting on the ship awaiting me to progress the story to the next mission, and when I left they were talking, and when I came back they were still talking. It’s mostly Rocket and Drax that talk the most. With the occasional “I Am Groot”. But to be fair, its mostly Rocket.

And the game includes a surprising amount of “swearing”. It’s not true swearing because its mostly “flark” and “flarking” but I guess they can get a way with it because its not English. Sounds pretty close. I guess it’s similar to Firefly, where they were able to get away with swearing in Chinese without upsetting the sensors.

Speaking of the end of the year, it has been a pretty solid year of games. I have my curated list of games I played this year, ready to go for my year-end Games Reviewed Quickly post:

  • The Gunk (2021)
  • Watch Dogs Legion (2020)
  • The Pedestrian (2022)
  • Borderlands 3 (2020)
  • Far Cry New Dawn (2019)
  • Golf Club Wasteland (2021)
  • Grounded (2020 early access)
  • Shredders (2022)
  • Mortal Kombat 11 (2020)
  • FAR Changing Tides (2022)
  • Dead Cells (2018)
  • Sniper Elite 5 (2022)
  • Grand Theft Auto III Remastered (2021)
  • Hitman 2 (2018)
  • A Plague Tale – Innocence (2021)
  • GRID Legends (2022)
  • Hot Wheels Unleashed
  • Riders Republic
  • Death Stranding
  • Forza Horizons 5
  • Fall Guys
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
  • Far Cry 6
  • Halo Infinite
  • Guardians of the Galaxy

//

What I’m Playing

As I mentioned above, I’m playing GotG (hoping to wrap it up by the end of the year), Halo on co-op nights, Fall Guys, Lego Star Wars with my 4 year old, Far Cry 6 on co-op nights, Need For Speed Unbound, and even tried Gungrave GORE.

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What I’m Drawing

I haven’t been drawing at all, sadly. I put like an hour into one of my comic pages, just flatting one of the panels. I also tried re-drawing the first panel in my book, as black and white, kinda like a manga to see if I like the style. I’ve been struggling a lot lately with the idea of continuing where I left off or starting over in the format below, in the interest of saving time. Drawing, inking and colouring is a huge undertaking, and I don’t know if I’m cutout to actually progress. I might have to make some sacrifices to my original vision just to actually move ahead and make progress. Whether that means changing the art style , or changing the colour method.

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What I’m Reading

I recently picked up Ducks which is a illustrated memoir about Kate Beaton’s 2 years in the Albertan Oil Sands. Paints a very real picture of what life is/was like there, how lonely it can be, how being a woman in a male dominated industry is like. A very good, honest, bleak, book all around. On the top 10 lists for non-fiction books for 2022.

Also picked up the Classic Collection of Spawn Batman, the combo DC and Image published books, as well as the latest edition that Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo did, that released this month. Among my many other comics that I pick up every week.

//

Below is the most recent (3 weeks ago) episode of our Halo playthrough. Unfortunately after finishing this episode, the next two nights that we played, the capture get messed up as it didn’t encode properly. So I got 2 hours of audio, and no gameplay :(. They were some good sessions too. So the series will have a little gap, but hopefully our next session I’ll be able to pick up the recording again and jump into more editing.

That wraps up the last few weeks for sure. Next update should have me completed GoTG, a new Halo Episode (fingers crossed) and my 2022 Reviews Done Quickly.

iRogan
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