He spends his days at b3ta and, if you happen to be in the right position at the right time of day, he takes requests.

And yes, it's just a biro and some paper.
Extraordinary.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 4:57 AM on July 15, 2006

Haha, my personal favourite. Stunning stuff.
posted by Acey at 5:01 AM on July 15, 2006

best
posted by NinjaTadpole at 5:01 AM on July 15, 2006

Some of these are really great. The little details are hilarious. "Acme Otter Suit." The Death of Penguins riding a jolly walrus. The cloven feet of Devil Duck. I got bored with all the "ant" ones, though.
posted by Gator at 5:17 AM on July 15, 2006

Wow, they look like old engravings.
posted by Jimbob at 5:20 AM on July 15, 2006

If you can coax him into putting that cow porn up as a t-shirt, I'd buy one.
posted by crunchland at 5:27 AM on July 15, 2006

Speaking as someone who helped pioneer this medium back in the 1960s and 70s, I acknowledge this artist's excellence, while at the same time, pointing out that he is not really challenging the medium. The shapes and strokes and modelling he achieves are the easiest effects to do with a ball point pen, or biro. The mode of caricature, the breakup of the page, and the range of values are all very comfortably done and correspond to the roll of the pen over the paper, swiveling at the arc of the palm. He should recognize that these broad caricatures have been done before with biro. What he needs to do now is to bring the medium to bear on the realistic human face and figure. Realistic depictions of human beings and their clothing are a struggle in ball point, but the person who does it successfully will have accomplished something new and potentially transcendent.
posted by Faze at 5:33 AM on July 15, 2006

Otter Penguin is strangely cool.
posted by TheDonF at 6:18 AM on July 15, 2006

Faze: if he's around on monday, I'll give him a challenge.
posted by NinjaTadpole at 7:11 AM on July 15, 2006

Here's a couple of my biro drawings from the early seventies. Not great, but it was an effort to pull out of the caricature trap...




posted by Faze at 9:52 AM on July 15, 2006

I'm sure he could make money making a poster of his Inhuman Pyramid.
posted by Blue Stone at 11:00 AM on July 15, 2006

...bring the medium to bear on the realistic human face and figure...

Is an elfin face and figure good enough?


posted by JoKeR at 11:04 AM on July 15, 2006

Fantastic! Makes me wish I had at least one artistic bone in my body.
posted by persona non grata at 4:04 PM on July 15, 2006

Dave Archambault seems to have headed in a direction more to Faze's liking. I think they are both excellent.
posted by Gamecat at 6:52 PM on July 15, 2006

In case there was any doubt, the image I included above was done using only colored ball point pens by George Barr.
A larger image of the drawing can be found here.
posted by JoKeR at 7:54 PM on July 15, 2006

Realistic depictions of human beings and their clothing are a struggle in ball point, but the person who does it successfully will have accomplished something new and potentially transcendent.

I would assume Gamecat's link to Archambault would pretty much fulfill your criteria for transcendence. I think he easily qualifies for "realistic depictions" to the point of almost (monochrome) photorealism.
posted by Ynoxas at 10:11 PM on July 15, 2006

Ynoxas,
I dunno that Archambault would fulfill Faze's criteria for transcendence- mainly because tracing photographs and then depicting them in pen and ink is not exactly pushing any creative bounderies. My own personal definition of art is extremely broad, but with the exception of an artist like Chuck Close, who made every daub of paint, pencil, or charcoal count on its own in his photo-realistic portraits that he mapped out from photographs, that process is closer to say, paint by numbers, than art. I prefer the originality and actual creative problem solving on Biro-Art and I hope the artist takes Faze's advice (which I think was given out of respect, rather than derision) and pushes his vision further in a direction that is completely his own.
posted by stagewhisper at 3:41 PM on July 16, 2006

I love this biro art! How inspiring! Thanks for yet another great post Wolfdog. (Yours are some of my favs). I love the "ant" series. Especially the pedant.

Wow, Faze, Wonderful drawings! I love the one on top. Can't access the photobucket site, any other site I can look at your art?

Really good additional links in the thread.
posted by nickyskye at 11:25 AM on July 24, 2006