Hello everyone, and welcome back to another monthly wrap-up. After last month’s lengthily post, I have a somewhat shorter installment, as I didn’t really get up to all that much throughout last month, April. In the month of May I accomplished a bit more, but April was very much a rest month.

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As always, let’s start with the games.

I beat Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. 125 hours. 1020/2110 Gamerscore. This includes the main storyline quests and the Order assassinations, and most of the side stuff, like the Orlog games and Flyting, and the Alpha animals. I didn’t do the other completionist stuff like collectibles or completing each territory. But I did get Thor’s full gear. I also did the Ireland DLC, a bit of the Ragnarök DLC. Kind of got burnt out on the game near the end, and didn’t try the France DLC.

Still playing Final Fantasy VII: Remake on the PC. Its a slow burn, where I play maybe an hour or so a week. I think I’m on Chapter 9 now.

And also playing Saint’s Row (2022 Reboot) with Illestrader, in co-op. As I mentioned in my last post, the quality of the game isn’t a huge step forward over the past iteration. There’s some fun missions, and the game doesn’t take itself too seriously. Fun in co-op at least.

Now that I’ve wrapped up Assassin’s Creed, my next Xbox story game will probably be A Plague Tale: Requiem. Something smaller and shorter, while I take a breather from open-world games. I also have Hellblade 2 that recently released, Brothers Remake, and Valiant Hearts – Coming Home. Some shorter artistic style games, to cleanse the palette. Maybe I’ll give Prince of Persia The Lost Crown and real try as well.

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On to some drawings, which again, as I mentioned, April was very much a rest month. But I was able to draw a few things this month, including Rogue (on paper and digital), a cyber witch from the book Hexware, slowly plugging away at a Jinx drawing, and Scarlett, from G.I. Joe.

With Rogue, I originally drew it fully digital, and coloured. But I wasn’t happy with the face. Easy enough to fix in digital – but – I had recently purchased some Posca Paint Marker Pens. I figured because I hardly draw on paper anymore, I might be rusty. So I printed off the line art for Rogue, and light-boxed it onto a comic board in pencil, fixing the things I didn’t like a long the way, and then inked it. Just as an experiment to warm up my hands and test how steady they are. I have the tools, just not really the time or proper space. I do want to test out the markers on a canvas though, so I’m thinking, throughout the summer, as I don’t really like sitting at my computer on hot summer nights, I might do more traditional art.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I’ve been reading and writing about the graphic novels that I consume every week. Comics and art – two huge passions, that I won’t shut up about and need to share. Well, one graphic novel a week is my set homework – to help overcome my ever-growing backlog. And so I thought, to help add some variety to my art, I might try to do more fan art, of the books I’m actively reading. First was a book by Tim Seely called Hexware (week 19), and the main character, Witch-Ware. Loose and quick. Kind of messy. But a fun warm up. I didn’t want this side job to my writing to take up to much time.

Link below to the Substack column on Hexware – also where you can check out all 20 books I’ve read to date: https://andrewrogan.substack.com/p/week-book-19-hexware?r=2glri

Jinx has been a work in progress as I noodle for about 30 mins – 1 hour in the ink, and then step away.

And finally, just finished tonight, Scarlett, from G.I Joe.

Skybound recently started publishing the G.I Joe comic and I’ve been reading it for the first time. It’s now part of the Energon Universe with Transformers, and they’ve been publishing a lot of spin-off books as well, focusing on Duke, and Cobra Commander, and Scarlett.

In its current interpretation, G.I Joe has been around for 40+ years, and I’m now getting to learn about these characters for the first time.

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I think that wraps up April and most of May. I think I’ll do more G.I Joe characters before the month is out – Baroness for sure.

Alright, that’s all for now.
Rogan
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