Tag Archives: Drawing

What was always expected…

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Hello everyone, and welcome back for another monthly wrap-up. Last update was in July, and we’re, gasp, in September? Where did the summer go? Kiddo’s going back to school, and morning’s start to become a little more hectic again. Life returning to normal.

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On the battlefront, it has been a little chaotic…a lot on the go, but not really dedicating a lot of time to one specific game. Feels like a freefall, and grasping at whatever looks shiny on that particular day.

Bad news first: Atomic Heart is no longer on GamePass, so I’ve stopped playing it. To be fair, I never really started, and didn’t really invest a lot of time into it. But I will probably buy it if/when it goes on sale. It’s on the wishlist. I liked the concept, and it felt like a good successor to Bioshock. I just didn’t really give it enough time.

Tried out Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. The game looked pretty, but didn’t really feel like it had a lot of substance. Like some out of the box mechanics pasted overtop of the Unreal Engine. Maybe that’s a little harsh. It’s on GamePass for now, and once I wrap up a few other on-going games, I’ll drop back in to see it through.

Surprisingly the game I spent the most time on over the summer was The Division 2. Yes the same Division 2 from 2019. I’ve been playing through some of the free seasonal content they added over the years, as well as the Gangs of New York expansion – which I previously bought, but is now tacked on, free to play. The game is still a lot of fun, and you can boost your character with the new season. And I wish Ubisoft would make another. But this dive-back-in was mostly to grab some outstanding achievements. Currently G1005/1420 : 47/60. 54hrs.

Playing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League with Illestrader every co-op Wednesday. The game feels a lot like Gotham Knights and The Avengers. Mostly focused on combat and traversal. Rocksteady has done a good job with the story thus far, but my complaint is the focus on gear and gear attributes. And it seems like every time we sit down to play, there’s a new combat mechanic added to the mix. I feel like I have to break my hand to try out the different button combinations. Also, the game gets interrupted after every missions with a competition screen, to show who on the team did the best, and unlocks, etc. I wish it played a little smoother and seamless. I’m playing as Harley, obviously, and he’s playing as Deadshot, and then we each share one co-op AI buddy, in King Shark and Captain Boomerang. So far my favourite in the game is Boomerang due to his dialogue. Harley is a little heavy on the accent. G80/1000 : 7/50. 6hrs. Still early in the game.

My main three single-player games are The First Descendant, Final Fantasy, and God of War. All on the PC.

The First Descendant has been a lot of fun. The story is mostly nonsensical, but as I mentioned last month, plays like a Destiny game, only with a lot more gear and weapon mechanics. Its overwhelming and I’m trying to not spend too much time focusing on it, as I’m not in it for the grind. I will play through the story and see if I can 100% the achievements, but if they become a little much, which I’m expecting 2 to be, then I’ll call it quits until there’s an expansion or more content. Free to play means there will be, and I’ll keep playing it as long as its still fun and not a burden. One thing I will say, that I appreciate about this game, is that it has cross-play, cross-save and cross-progression enabled. So if I wanted to, I can switch between the Xbox and Steam, and the achievements unlock for both. G680/1000 : 19/24. 10hrs.

I finished Chapter 12 in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Chapter 12 was a doozy with multiple characters dying. Took quite the toll. But the game is still fun, and I’m taking it slow as I don’t want the wait between me completing it and then waiting on PC version FF VII Rebirth to be too far in-between. 27/63. 20hrs.

Lastly on the list is God of War. This is a replay for me, on the PC. I’d previously played it on release on the PS4. But I haven’t invested in a PS5 and likely won’t, so I’ve been waiting on God of War Ragnarök’s PC release. Which is just around the corner. So I figured I should do a replay of the first one, to get caught up on the story again. I even got a PS5 controller for the new God of War, to take full advantage of the game. But God of War is still so good.

After I wrap up God of War and Ragnarök, and Final Fantasy, I think my next PlayStation games will be the Horizon Forbidden West sequel and Spider-Man replay w/ Miles Morales. Hopefully by that time, either Spider-Man 2 or The Last of Us 2, or Final Fantasy Rebirth will have been ported over.

//

Onto some drawings. Which, as expected, over the summer, tend to slow down a bit with the hot summer nights. But will hopefully pick back up as we switch to fall, and then I’ll have to think about what I’m going to do for Drawtober this year…if anything. We shall see how I’m feeling. How tired I am.

First up, Dazzler. I’m not sure where the motivation came from this, but it was an X-Men character I’ve had on my list, and I guess the planets aligned for one night.

Annually, there is a hashtag that pops up called #faceyourart, and it’s to show just the faces you draw. Facing your art. Always a fun glimpse into what I’ve been drawing, and how many female instead of men I draw. This is the group for the last 12 months, ending with Dazzler:

Over on my Substack, I recently did a write-up for CHU, as a recent series that followed John Layman’s last big series in CHEW. This is the sister prequel series. Here is the quick fan art that I like doing for the column. Saffron Chu.

The rest are still in various forms of completion. Like my games list, these drawings are just on a continual rotation of work-in-progress. So this is actually the first place these have been shared. Maybe the only place. First up is Savage Land Rogue. I like where this is heading. Still need to fine tune some things. Like the belt, and the back arm I think is a little short. And then decide if I want to add colour and some background elements.

Catwoman and Batman. The wife recently watched The Wolf of Wallstreet for the first time, and there’s a classic scene between Margot Robbie and Leonardo DiCaprio in the bedroom. I wanted to mimic that for the Bat and the Cat. WIP. This one has been fun. Might turn it into a poster if it turns out well.

Bunny. 2022 was the last time I had done a webcomic on my StrangerThanFriendship site. And I have a new idea focusing on The First Descendant, and just how unnecessarily sexy the female costumes are in the game. I get that its a F2P and they want to get as much money out of their targeted demographic as possible. But its a bit much at times. Here’s a quick sketch of Bunny for the comic – or maybe just an excuse to draw the Bunny character from the game ;).

Lastly is Jinx, which is another addition to the GI Joe drawings I’ve been doing. Ink is done – just need to find the time to colour.

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Over on the Substack, I finished The Hard Switch, by Owen Pomery, CHU (see above) and Fatale, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, and did a nice little write up for each. Next up is Far Sector, which is a DC Green Lantern book, and then rounding out #30 with The Watchmen. Then I gotta buckle down, as I got roughly 16 more weeks left in the year to see if I can read and write about 22 more books. Can I meet my 52 book goal. Not likely, but worth a shot.

And with that ends August. Remember to go outside.
Rogan
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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:

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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

//

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:

//

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.

//

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