Sketch Dump: Ilya 2, Drop 17

More Jim Lee sketches.  Zatanna and Voodoo.  (The squat pose didn't work out for me.)

Christy Blaze and Saturn Girl.  (The reclining pose didn't work out for me).

Wonder Woman and Freefall (Roxy).  I'm not sure why I didn't ink and color Roxy.  The boobs are wrong, but I like the rest of the drawing.

Christy Blaze and Freefall.

And lastly, Phantom Girl from the Legion of Superheroes.   

Sketch Dump: Ilya 2, Drop 16

It's all Jim Lee for this post.  That's Christie Blaze on the left.  (I like that one.)  And Voodoo on the right.

Black Canary (I like this one) and Poison Ivy.

Voodoo.

Subline from DV8 (I don't know the character either, but I like the sketch) and Voodoo.

Starting top left and going clockwise: Fairchild, Black Canary, Oracle, Zatanna, and Voodoo.  Well, this was one post where I think I learned something from the Jim Lee Artbook.  Pity, I'm not retaining these lessons in future drawings.  

Sketch Dump: Ilya 2, Drop 15

The first four drawings here are from the Jim Lee artbook.  This is a reasonably cute Catwoman.  

Here's Power Girl.  The hands are trash.  The anatomy may be a bit off.  (Especially the boobs.  Power Girl's boobs are legendary.  I get embarrassed drawing big boobs.)  I still like the face.

Voodoo, Zealot, and Fairchild.  I like the one in the middle.  The other two are crap.

I guess I was feeling more confident and colored and inked these sketches of Saturn Girl and Black Canary.  They're okay-ish.

Lastly, when Olivia Newton-John died and looked for a pictures to draw, since I'd been a long-ago fan of hers.  (My dad had a crush on her.  Him and mom saw her in concert here in Las Cruces.)  These unfortunately turned out terrible.    

Sketch Dump: Ilya 2, Drop 14

 

These are mostly more sketches from the Jim Lee art book I got last year.  Judging from these sketches, I don't know if I learned anything about drawing from it.  This is obviously Wonder Woman.  

Voodoo from WildCATS and Wonder Woman.

That's Death.  I like this one.  I don't know why I didn't color it.  That's Supergirl next to her.

Wonder Woman.  My figure drawing sucks.

Lastly, that's Persephone from Joelle Jones' Wonder Girl.  Lastly, that's Wonder Woman from the Gal Gadot movie. 

Sketch Dump: Ilya 2, Drop 13

A couple of sketches of Crossgen characters.  That's Neven from Sojourn on the left and Sephie from Meridian on the right.  I think I was upset enough with my inking at the time to just focus on my pencils. 

Clockwise from the top left: Arwyn from Sojourn, Cassie (Wonder Girl), Voodoo, Artemis, and Yara (Wonder Girl).

  

Artemis and Persephone from a Joelle Jones' Wonder Girl comic.  There's some small portraits of Zealot by Jim Lee on the side.

I guess I felt better about my inking and coloring when I did these sketches of Cassie (Wonder Girl) by Joelle Jones.

More from Wonder Girl with Cassie and Artemis staring each other down.  Artemis should be a lot bigger and taller than Cassie.  There's a couple of Jim Lee Voodoos on the side. 

NM State Aggies vs UTEP Miners Softball 3-5-23

Straight from Aggie Baseball, I went over to Aggie Softball.  I knew that their two games of the day were delayed from an early game between the two visiting teams.  When I walked in, it was 4-4 in the seventh inning with the Aggies playing the Northern Colorado Bears. 

Whoa!  More interestingly (sorry Softball girls), gorgeous Volleyball player, Ryleigh Whitekettle, was sitting right by the entrance by herself.  Since we’d met yesterday, I boldly sat down next to her and starting talking to her.  I briefly told her that baseball was a disaster and that they’d walked off without shaking hands with the other team.  She was a bit shocked and said she’d ask somebody about it, implying she knew somebody on the team.  (Which wouldn’t surprise me at all given how many good-looking girls hang around the ballpark.)  I also learned that she was friends with Jordin King on the Softball team and she was there supporting her.

 

I didn’t get much time with her.  Jillian Taylor came up with a runner on and blasted a two-run walk-off homer to win the game, 6-4.  Yay!  (Darn it.)  With the break before the UTEP game, Ryleigh left, saying she wanted to change and lived across the street in dorms.  I went back to my truck to apply more sunscreen and get my bucket hat.  There’s no shade at the Softball Complex and there was only intermittent cloud cover.  I discovered in the mirror in the bathroom that I already had a ripping sunburn on my neck.

 

Coach Rodolph was still not in attendance for this game.  Later, someone from the team came up and was talking to someone next to me and said something about, “She came to in the hospital and asked, ‘Who won the game?’”  Immediately alarmed, I butted in and asked if she was talking about the coach.  She said, “No,” and that the coach was just out sick.  I’m still not sure.

 

The crowd for both games today was over 500.  I came back and sat back down where I was right behind home plate.  It was a great view of the game, but it pretty much left me no view of anything else in the stadium.  I have 1/3 a page of notes on the game as a consequence.  The pretty Pan-Am girl was there somewhere behind me.  Ryleigh came back (with less clothing on), but sat elsewhere in the stadium.  I was a bit hurt.  

It was good Ryleigh came back, because Jordin King was starting for the Aggies in this game.   I didn’t see her have a good outing earlier this season and she started off the game against the Miners with a walk.  An error put two on, but Jordin came back to get three outs on contact to get out of the inning.  In the bottom, Kayla Bowen slapped a double and advanced to third on a wild pitch, but was left stranded. 

 

Jordin worked a quick second, again inducing contact.  Unfortunately, so did Aalijah Alarcon, UTEP’s starter.  Pate Cathey led off the third with a home run to give the Miners a 1-0 lead.  Jordin settled down and kept inducing soft contact to end the inning.  Jillian came up in the bottom and homered right back.  The girl was on fire today.  Her teammates made a tunnel for her when she went back into the dugout.  1-1.   

 

I kept changing hats and taking off and putting on my sunglasses as the sun peeked in and out of the clouds.  I probably looked like an idiot.  No wonder Ryleigh didn’t want to sit with me.  They ran the Fry Game between innings with a kid.  In lieu of the Pan Am video board, excessively handsome Football player, Thomaz Whitford, came out with an iPad to run the game.  As usual, the contestant guessed right.

 

Jordin got her first strikeout, and a looking one, to start the fourth.  Paige Knight at third, Kristen Boyd at second, and Kayla at first combined on a sweet DP to end the inning.  In the bottom, Kayla started off the inning with a single.  She took second with a surprise stolen base.  It was so surprising, the catcher threw the ball into centerfield. Kayla made a rough slide into third on the error.  The coach and a trainer came out to her, but Kayla came up smiling.  Hannah Lindsay drove her in with a groundout.  Ajia Richard at short made a great snow cone catch to end the inning, but the Aggies were now up 2-1.

 

Jordin worked an in-order top of the fifth, again doing it with contact.  Paige singled to start the bottom.  Savannah Bejarno came in to pinch run and stole second, but was called out, perhaps for leaving too soon.  Emily Dix came in in relief for the sixth.  She gave up a single.  The runner was bunted over to second, but left stranded.       

 

Jill got it started in the bottom of the sixth with a single.  Kendal Lunar followed that with a single and Jillian hustled to third, sliding under the tag.  Ajia then turned in another good play, by catching a liner and doubling off Jill.  Aalijah almost got out of it, but Riley Carley and Kristen drove in a pair of runs with singles to make it 4-1 Aggies.  Emily worked a no-drama bottom to win the game. 

 

Unlike yesterday, this was a very tight, tense, and well-played game.  I don’t think my recap is doing it justice.  It was also a very quick game at one hour and 40 minutes.  Not to mention, I didn’t do a lot of crowd coverage.  I found out later that broadcasting legend, Jack Nixon, was calling these games.  Annoying that it wasn’t on the radio. 

 

For Gameballs, Miner pitcher Aalijah Alacron gets one for keeping the Aggie offense in check for most of the game.  For the Aggies, Jillian Taylor went 2 for 3 with that home run in the third.  Jordin King had a great bounce-back performance today, only giving up 1 run in the five innings.  Hopefully, she can build off this.  Emily Dix locked it down for 2 innings in a close game.

  

Ryleigh left and took my heart with her.  I went home and for the second day in a row, I went over to the mall for a dinner.  I actually half-ran, because I wasn’t sure when the mall closed.  For whatever reason, I wanted a big slice of Luigi’s Pizza and was willing to work up a big appetite for it.  It was great.  It was a long day at the diamonds, but finished well.

Bonus Coverage: Aggie Women’s Basketball at the WAC Tournament

Since this happened last night and I probably won’t be writing more about Aggie Sports for maybe the rest of the month, I’ll throw this in here.  The Aggie Women played in Las Vegas for the WAC Championship.  Hmm.  Seems like there’s something missing this year, but I can’t put my finger on it.  For some reason, I’m not really excited about March Madness either.  Regardless, I listened to both of the Women’s games this week.   

 

The ladies started off well on Monday against UTRGV, 65-49.  Molly Kaiser went off for 25 points.  Wednesday, they faced Southern Utah, the #2 seed and regular season winner of the conference.  In spite of giving up a huge amount in size, the Aggies ran up a 16-point lead at halftime. 

 

But after playing such tenacious defense with a short bench in the first half, a good team like the Thunderbirds were able to make a comeback.  SUU took the lead to start the fourth, but the Aggies retook a slim lead heading into the final minute, which may have taken 20 minutes to play out.  The Aggies were up by 5 in the final seconds.  The T-Birds cut it to 2 with 3 seconds left.  Cherita Daugherty made a one-handed heave near half-court that swished in to give SUU the 63-62 win.

 

I thought about calling dad after the game, but I didn’t want to talk about it.  He actually called me later when he saw it on the local news.  Just to make it worse and rub it in, the winning shot made the national news the next day.  The Aggies finished with four players in double figures and played their hearts out.  Senior Tayelin Grays looked completely devastated in the postgame press conference, as did the coach.  You can only tip your hat after that kind of loss.  Congrats to the girls and to Coach Adams for showing such character this season. 

NM State Aggies vs Pacific Tigers Baseball 3-5-23

The last time I wrote about the Aggie Baseball team, they had just lost three in-a-row of their opening series to Bellarmine, a university still transitioning to Division 1.  They went on the road to Sugarland and lost three there.  Tuesday night, the team hosted Benedictine Mesa and lost 9-3.  It wasn’t even that close.  BM is a DIII school.

 

Thanks to Coach Mike Kirby, NM State won a WAC Championship last year.  It was a great accomplishment.  It was especially great because the team was terrible last year.  I still don’t know how they not only won that championship, but dominated the tournament.  After all those losses last year and going 0-7 this year to poor competition, apparently that was enough.  Coach Kirby was fired on Thursday.  Pitching Coach Keith Zuniga was promoted to interim manager. 

 

There wasn’t an obvious scandal that did in Coach Kirby, though there was perhaps one issue.  During the Tuesday game, Gunner Antillon was hit on the face by a pitch.  I was listening on the radio, but it seemed like a deflected shot off his helmet.  They were cleaning up blood around home plate afterward, but Gunner walked off the field to the dugout.  He ended up getting sent to hospital . . . in El Paso, so it must have been serious.  There was a rumor that Coach Kirby didn’t take the injury seriously enough at first.  That might have been enough.But really, it was because the team lost on Sunggie Night.  How could you lose to a DIII team on Snuggie Night?

But really, it was because the team lost on Sunggie Night.  How could you lose to a DIII team on Snuggie Night?

 

One little happy sidebar I can report on.  March 1-st there was an Aggie Baseball reunion at Spring Training.  The Pirates and the Orioles met and Kyle Bradish, Nick Gonzales, and Joey Ortiz all played in the game.  (Joey and Nick respectively are pictured.)  Nick hit a home run late in the game, though not off Kyle.  This game was also notable because, while the Pirates won the game in the top of the ninth, the teams agreed to play out the bottom of the ninth anyway.  The umps had left the field, so they had to play without them.  Only in baseball.

 

This Sunday morning was another beautiful day.  This game was rescheduled to be at the same time as Aggie Softball’s first game today.  I chose baseball just because I wanted to see baseball.  Softball was running late from a preceding game anyway.  At the gate, I saw a couple of ushers that Ron is friends with.  They were wondering where he was for the last couple of games.  I told them he was out sick and they both said to tell him to get better.   

 

I picked up a stale $1 hot dog, corn-in-a-cup, and a bottle of Brisk tea at the Concessions.  I was hungry enough to not care about the quality of the food.  Inside, I saw fan Michael.  He also asked about Ron immediately.  Ron had really wanted to talk to him about the firing.  Strangely, Michael was genuinely sorry that Kirby was released.  He’d had several issues with him (including not letting him talk to the players), but he didn’t want him fired. 

 

Michael talked about Gunner’s injury.  It was much worse than described on the radio.  The whole stadium went deathly quiet and he was on the ground for quite a while sobbing.  He did walk to the dugout, but wobbled the whole way.  Once there, he threw down his helmet and starting yelling.  He was taken to El Paso just as a precaution.  I overheard later that Gunner was at today’s game watching. 

 

There was a pretty good crowd of over 600.  There were several kids in the crowd.  I noticed one little girl in a peach sundress with an Oriental parasol and clutching a baseball poster.  It was too cute, like a Rockwell painting.  I ran into a friendly retriever going down the aisle.  He trotted in front of me and demanded to be petted. 

 

Several cute sorority sisters were back to watch.  (No competition for Ryleigh Whitekettle, though.)  The Pan-Am girl was here with what looked like her little sister.  They mostly all stayed to end, even though the game was terrible (spoilers).  This would seem to confirm they’re “involved” with the team.  (The Pan-Am girl and sis did go directly to Softball afterward like I did.  Maybe they’re big Aggie Sports fans?)             

 

The team gathered on field for a meeting.  It seemed serious and was probably performance-related.  They were decked out in their new black and white threads.  They had an old-timey Field of Dreams look to them that was probably intentional. 

 

This weekend they were facing the 1-6 Pacific Tigers.  The Aggies lost 6-4 Friday night.  They had 3 errors in the game, which led to 2 unearned runs, which were the difference.  Kevin Jimenez did go 3 for 4 in the game.  Saturday night, the Aggies lost 4-3 in the 10 innings.  Logan Galina did hit a tying home run in the 9-th to force the extra frame.   

That brings us to today.  Some defensive changes had been made with Gunner out and after that 3-error Friday game.  Mitch Namie was in the outfield.  Edwin Martinez-Pagani was at third and Romeo Ballesteros was at short.  Romeo had an impressive flow going.  He really fits his name.

 

Hayden Walker started for the Aggies and had a rough first.  After the second hit batter of the inning and 3 runs had scored, the Aggie bullpen started up.  KJ and Romeo had nice plays in field to help end the inning.  3-0 Tigers.  The stands were rather quiet.  I could easily hear Coach Zuniga encouraging players at the plate from the dugout in the bottom.

 

Walker settled down in the second and only allowed a single.  The batter, Ben Nemivant, also stole second on a pitchout.  Romeo had another slick play in the inning.  In the top of the third, a difficult sky (overcast) and a bit of wind resulted in a triple.  KJ and Walker nipped the next batter at first to end the inning without damage.  Aggie catcher, Nick Gore, worked a leadoff walk in the bottom of the third.  He was indecisive on a wild pitch and made the wrong choice and was thrown out.

 

The Tigers broke out again with the bats in the fourth.  Walker was chased after two singles and mammoth three-run homer by Nemivant.  This started a parade of Aggie relievers.  There was another triple.  This one went into the left field corner, but the runner was left stranded.  6-0 Pacific.  Between innings, I had two of the three items for the What’s in Your Pocket Contest . . . in my truck.  They were just giving away fanny packs anyway. 

 

Kevin reached base on an error in the bottom of the fourth.  By this point, I was paying attention to these kind of things.  Galina made a great play to the pitcher covering first on the leadoff batter in the fifth.  The next batter walked.  Romeo had a little trouble going to his right on a single, but might not have had a chance on the batter anyway.  Nemivant, there he is again, impressively beat out an infield hit to drive in another run.  7-0 Pacific.  A couple of kids went down front to a senior fan with a ball and had him sign it.  I wonder who he is.

 

In the bottom of the fifth, the Aggies worked a pair of walks.  Tiger pitcher, Jacob Smith, was taken out of the game.  He was stone faced going to the dugout and took no accolades from this teammates.  I gave him a small round of applause.  He’d been throwing a no-hitter to this point.  The reliever issued a walk and then induced a double play to end the inning.

 

Saul Soto started the sixth for the Aggies.  He gave up a double and a wild pitch advanced the runner to third.  Saul got a strikeout and a groundout, but was then relieved by Kade Benavidez.  The dugout called for an intentional walk.  Kade then made a great pickoff of the runner at third to end the inning without throwing a pitch.

 

In the bottom of the sixth after a walk, KJ finally broke up the no-hitter with a single to center.  A no-hitter at Presley Askew Field was ever unlikely at best, much less a combined one.  I’d already seen a no-hitter last week anyway.  The pitcher came out after throwing two balls to Logan.  He was likely hurt.  Bases loaded, EMP drove in the first Aggie run with a groundout.  Karl Koerper cashed in 2 RBI’s with a single to make it 7-3.  The crowd exploded.  They finally had something to cheer about.

 

That was as close as it got.  The Tigers put up 5 runs in the seventh to make it 12-3.  They added another run in the eighth, 13-3.  EMP did make a good play to get a runner at the plate.  At one point, a runner was held up at third by the coach.  Pacific wasn’t even trying to run up the score. 

 

In the bottom, Romeo hit an infield flare that the third baseman couldn’t handle.  However, the shortstop grabbed the ball and got the out at first.  Romeo was still standing by home plate.  I don’t know if he didn’t run or tripped or something, but it looked bad.  KJ came up next and hit a wind-aided home run to center.  God bless him.  Crap, there goes a quick run rule finish, I thinking right after.  13-4 Pacific was the final.

 

The last couple of innings, the crowd thinned out and became church-like quiet.  I could hear lots of cheering over at the Softball field.  I chose badly.  The team disappeared after the game.  No handshaking with the opponents.  No meeting on field.  They weren’t even in the dugout.  I don’t know what happened to them.  It unfortunately reminded me of the Football team’s embarrassing loss to FIU.   

 

I have three easy Gameballs to hand out.  For Pacific, Ben Nemivant went 6 for 6 with 6 RBI’s.  Jacob Smith gave up no hits and no runs for over four innings, but didn’t even qualify for the win.  For the Aggies, Kevin Jimenez went 2 for 4 with a home run RBI.  He’s the heart-and-soul of the team.  At least the Aggies’ defense improved for this game.  Now all they need to do is improve the hitting and pitching.     

 

As I walked out, the usher by the front gate told me again to tell Ron to get well soon.  (I told him.)  The game went for under three hours.  It felt longer.  At least the pace-of-play rules are working.  Since it was still early in the afternoon, I walked over to the Softball Complex to see how those games were going.