This week I went back to the ballpoint pen. Straying a bit from realism, I decided to push the limits on what I normally do. Below are a collection of some of the drawings I completed.

I drew the raising of the American flag on Mt. Suribachi in honor and remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the act on Iwo Jima – February 23, 1945

This was the first experimental drawing that I did. Looking at the sharp angles of Leyendecker, I tried to place a bit of that in the figure. The same with the directional line work too. The face is ballpoint pen and the shadowing was done with a slightly dried out sharpie marker.

I have not done any sort of caricature-like drawings in a long time and thought I would give it a go. I wanted to capture the shadows and line work, especially going around the surfaces of the figure. I did push the proportions of the body a bit, but I went further with the head. It is not an over the top caricature which I happen to like better than some of the crazier ones.

This is another example of the caricature-like style of drawing. With both of the pieces, I drew the body first and did the head second. This made it easier for me to really do something that did not necessarily fit the body. I will be doing more of these characters in the future.