One of my favorite Presidents is Abraham “I don’t need no stinkin’ middle name” Lincoln. I don’t know if a lot of people know this but I studied a fair bit of history in college and often during breaks between my history class I would draw famous historical leaders in my notebook. Also I would add stupid comments or quotes from them in word bubbles next to them. While I mostly took western civilization classes I would often draw Abraham Lincoln throughout history interacting with everyone from the Mesopotamians all the way up to Churchill. Some people who would sit nearby would often ask if I really liked Bill & Ted (I have never seen either movies), which I would just smile and say no to.
Well this year was President Lincoln’s 200th birthday so I thought I would take on this small project where I would try to draw a couple of illustrations of him. I thought I would have started earlier but it just didn’t happen. Tonight I started my first illustration in what I am calling the Honest Abe series. Here is how far I got tonight in what I would call a clean rough. I was thinking of taking this into Corel Painter but I might hold off for the next illustration to do that and instead just do a very flat cartoony coloring in Photoshop.
I don’t believe I am going to draw his legs but I am holding off on drawing his hands for another night. Like Hitler, I have trouble drawing hands and it usually takes me a while to get something acceptable. Most people don’t appreciate this joke when I tell it, but it’s true that one of the reasons Hitler was rejected from art school was his lack of an ability to draw hands.