Most Wanted

Posted on December 20, 2022 by iRogan

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.

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.

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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I Won’t Break

Posted on October 19, 2022 by iRogan

I’m up to 14 drawings now this month for Inktober/Drawtober/Artober…whatever. So many names. I remember a few years ago, someone came up with Pouchtober, and the prompt list was just a bunch of Rob Liefeld characters who were overburdened with pouches.

Here’s week two:

Tira is a redraw from a 2003-2004 drawing I did back when I worked in Flash. I never finished that drawing as I accidentally wiped my HDD and always wanted to try again. This year’s drawtober is all about 2nd chances.

Fragile was really just me inking a drawing I had completed earlier in September and more or less needed a night off.

Harley Quinn, another attempt at trying to make my evening a bit lighter. Not a full pose.

Usagi Yojimbo and Leonardo. The tortoise and the hare. But really just a Turtle and Rabbit, but that doesn’t sound as cool. This one was spread over 2 nights as it was 2 characters. So it counts as 2. My rules after all 😉

Medusa, Queen of the Inhumans. Obliviously wanted to torture myself with some hair. A lot of fun to draw though.

Felicia, from the video game Darkstalkers. Another re-draw, or inspired for an old drawing. This character I had previously drawn in 2011. Funny story, re-reading my 2011 post, I had wanted to draw Felicia and then Morrigan, but never got around to the latter. Well 2022 me resolved that.

So that’s week two. I feel like this set has some strong entries. More better than not. Harley’s corset lacks any type of detail which I feel is hurting the piece, and Felicia could benefit from some shading or colour or something as it is just very fine line work right now. Fragile’s face got lost in the inking. i feel the pencil was stronger, and I ruined it. Another post-October fix I think. Due to cold (still ongoing), I’m actually 4 days behind schedule, but that’s OK. I still intend to complete the full set. Just maybe not exactly on time.

Otherwise, I haven’t done much else. Playing Fall Guys in my spare time, and “watching” a lot of movies and TV in the background as I draw.

iRogan

Doc Oc-tober

Posted on October 11, 2022 by iRogan

Shit, do I have to draw Doc Oc now? But my prompt list is already overfull.

Drawtober or Inktober, however you wish to call it…I have been calling it #drewtober. Included in the gallery below are the first 7 additions to this months drawing festivity. Pretty good start so far. Some hits and misses, which is to be expected and accepted by myself as I need to learn to let things go, and I’m drawing and completing one of these per night. Perfection isn’t a guarantee.

My favourite so far has got to be Poison Ivy. Partly because it has more detail. I was able to take a day off for that one, but was able to put in some work in the afternoon, so that piece was almost two sittings. But the results speak. Also this year I wanted to try out some watercolour rendering, when time allows for it.

I’ll be adding a photo album to house all these drawings, and posting weekly with each batch. Wish me luck as I try to actually complete the whole month. Every year I’ve made an attempt, since 2013, and never done 31 drawings. The most was 15 or 16 I think.

Also, as an updated from last post, Crush, fully inked:

iRogan

Self-Improvement

Posted on June 15, 2022 by iRogan

So one of the big changes that happened over the last two months was the purchase of a Wacom 24″ Cintiq.

I previously had a Huion 22″, which I’ve gotten great use out of for the past 5-6 years, but I finally decided to invest in the upgrade. And I love it so far, but haven’t really gotten the chance to explore. There definitely is an adjustment period. For starters, its much higher resolution, and much bigger and far more sturdy. I also purchased the ergo stand with it, so I can adjust/tilt/rotate as I feel. Which also works because it has double duty as my main work-from-home monitor.

It also comes with this handy little remote control for quick keys. Now I just have to figure out the most efficient way to program them to speed up my work. But the nicest feature is the stylus that I no longer have to charge the battery. So nice.

What I’m Drawing Cont’d

Another addition to the X-Ladies group, with Mystique. I think this will be the last addition too. 6 is a good round number for the group. Balances well. Now I just need to work on the background and overall character placement to fit a background. And then colour. I got quite the backlog of things to colour now. I should probably stop drawing new stuff for a bit and actually finish stuff. Like Harley Quinn, Angela, and this group. Better get started.

Plus I have another Stranger Than Friendship comic queued up. Plus reading comics, plus playing video games. There’s just a lot of hobbies, not enough time.

Be good,
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iRogan

A Familiar Sound?

Posted on June 13, 2022 by iRogan

Has it nearly been 2 months already? Time is a fine sand, that slips through my fingers. It’s not even contained in a box, it’s just on the wind. Invisible.

What I’m saying is I don’t know where the time goes. Yesterday is a blur. But I do have two small kids and they keep me very busy, which might explain some of it. I crash at the end of the day. BSOD, and start fresh the next morning.

That’s not to say that I haven’t accomplished anything. I have lots of stuff to share. So much that I will spread it out throughout the week as a multi-day update, instead of overloading one single post.

So I’m thinking:

Monday – What I’m Drawing (May Sketch a Day)
Tuesday – What I’m Drawing Con’t
Wednesday – What I’m Reading
Thursday – What I’m Playing
Friday – What I’m Playing Con’t & Thoughts on the Xbox Showcase

What I’m Drawing

In May, I started a challenge called May Sketch a Day. Trying to draw something every day. I set a rule for myself to try and limit these to 1 hour. Some I went a little bit over. The 1 hour rule was to prevent burnout. As I mentioned above I have two small kids and work a full time day job, which leaves me some time in the evening after bedtimes, but not a lot, and I’m bad with sitting down to draw at 9PM, and then going till 2AM without standing up, and then realize it’s the middle of the week and have to wake up soon. Hence the rule.

I actually made it half way through the month uninterrupted, but then life got in the way. I managed a few more, then more life, and by then the streak was broken and my interest in the challenge faded.

Overall I’m proud of myself. With my art I can get hyper-focused and need everything to be perfect. So part of the goal was to let the drawings go, maybe incomplete, or a bit rough, after the 1hr, and not grind my teeth over it.

I’ll create a gallery for the drawings below when I find the time. Tomorrow I’ll show some of the other work I working on, plus show off my new drawing tool :D.