I had a dream a couple of nights ago that had me walking across a muddy baseball field, looking at the cleated footprints, and wondering what that game must have looked like. Before it ended, the dream had morphed into a scene of a ballgame taking place in a quagmire, watching the pitcher winding up while standing in gooey calf-deep mud. Late the following night, I sketched this up lying in bed trying to get some sleep. It turned out well enough that I cleaned it up this morning and stuck it in scraps. I don't know if I'll do anything further with this--I have enough on my plate as it is.

No rain delays for this league! This is the first time I've depicted any of my male characters "playing" in mud, and the only time I've depicted Roland involved in a team sport, neither of which is canon for the character (hence his thought bubble). I'm guessing between the mud and tight pants, this'll probaby get the most pageviews this character has ever seen in a single pic :)

Believe it or not this idea isn't entirely fictional. The dream sequence recalls a video I saw years ago (probably in the 1980's, could have been on Real People) of a Japanese baseball team playing through a rainstorm, with one clip showing the pitcher stomping down into a mud puddle surrounding his mound as he delivers his pitch.

Edit: Made the ground mud more liquid, filling in his footprints. If you can still see Roland's teeth clenched, refresh the page.
.05mm mechanical pencil on bristol

Edit: Colored this one in 2015 See it here