“We have a Black Hawk Down, I repeat. We have a Black Hawk Down”
If you are like me, a teenager in 1993 you may or may not remember this happening in real time. You may not have heard about it until Mark Bowden’s book, “Black Hawk Down”, or maybe even the movie. I was in the Navy on med hold with a broken hand when I picked up my copy. I had the time and read it from cover-to-cover numerous times. Simply an incredible story and battle.
After I was out of the Navy I would listen to interviews of Paul Howe and re-read the original articles Mark Bowden had published. Something about the battle. The men, the Delta Force guys, the Rangers, the sheer lopsidedness of it was awe inspiring.
Fast forward to social media in 2021. The rat race that is the art world and its utter reliance on platforms like Instagram, artists often chase trends, special release dates and such. Just follow any popular artist and you will see the mad dash to capitalize on any current event or movie release to gain exposure and sell prints. “May the 4th be with you” is a big one in the Star Wars world, followed by “Revenge of the 5th” etc. I am not personally good at following these trends and making these “deadlines”. That’s on me, I draw slow… And go through plenty of artist burnout.
Maybe one day I’ll finish my Mando
But as an artist that kind of tries to care about the rat race, I have different dates. Dates that mean more than Star Wars. Maybe I’ll make May the 4th some day. Maybe not. Nope, the dates I care about are dates that honor and reflect on sacrifice. Late August 2021, I was reviewing my drawing schedule and was thinking about those dates again. I was too late for some but not for October 3rd.
Why October 3rd? That was the day the Battle of the Black Sea (As it’s officially known) happened. When “Irene” came over the intercom. When 19 US servicemen went into harms way and didn’t come back. When numerous others were physically wounded, mentally wounded and when 2 volunteered to never come back. When Snipers MSG Gary Gordon and SFC Randy Shughart went in to help save CWO Mike Durant (Blackhawk Super 64 pilot). They knew exactly what was going to happen. 2 amazing warriors facing down a city trying to kill them. They made it to CWO Durant and bought him time. Time that saved his life at the cost of their own. They didn’t hesitate, they had to ask 3 times for approval to be dropped in. It wasn’t a split-second decision to jump on a grenade, no less heroic by any means. These 2 Delta snipers saw the battle from above, watching it unfold and their concern was to get in there and secure that crash site and protect the downed crew. Worthy of the Medal of Honor, damn right it was.
Worthy of myself trying to draw something to commemorate their sacrifice and the men of that battle? At the end of the day, I can’t put out something that I wouldn’t hang on my own wall. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it’s a drawing. But it had to be good enough that I’d hang it up, buy it if I saw it somewhere. Know what it meant whenever I looked at it. Could I pull that off? As an artist, veteran, and a “Gun Guy”?
What would I draw? An M21 obviously, right? SFC Shughart’s M21 has become an iconic symbol of that battle. The rifle itself draws emotions that attach the viewer to that event. But I hadn’t drawn a gun yet, hadn’t tried. It was up my alley in terms of my personal background and artistically I had mostly done precision line work with anatomy. Could I use that experience to do justice to a rifle? I researched my references, I don’t have an M1A in any fashion, they are expensive. Garand Thumb had done a YouTube video on his Shughart M21 build and I used that as my base. I researched most individual parts from the optics rail and Aimpoint to the bolt, trigger and mags. Finding the best images I could use as reference to help me “understand” how to draw them and especially how to shade the parts and add texture.
Up until this point, my drawings had been line art with hatching and cross hatching. Not filling in an entire piece like this with graphite. When I started this piece, it was just formatting the drawing and seeing if I could even get the lines right. There was a decent bit of frustration at different areas in the process. Lots of measuring, plotting point and “close enough”. The rear sight, bolt and worst of all, the magazine release. I must have practiced drawing that part 20 different ways 20 different times to get the right swoops and angles.
Amazingly, I was able to put down a fairly good, lined out M21, optic and all. Now it was time to figure out the graphite shading and texturing. I hadn’t done much of this, especially metal. If you are an artist, you will know that there are a few different ways to shade and bring out different textures. One way is to lay in some graphite and use blending stumps, Q-tips and even your fingers to blend it together. I don’t like that method. It’s valid and people do amazing work with it. I don’t. My background is in hatching, and I decided that was the way to go. With good paper and hatching I could create different textures of worn metal as I cut into the paper with pencils that were just shy of being needle point sharp.
I used all the leads I had, 4H through 8B and found my new love, “F”. Which I now refer to as my “Gun Metal Grey” lead.
The process of laying down the lines to create the rough metal textures was long, painful and tedious. Little lines hatching in only a few millimeters tall for a section, stacking all the leads on top of each other and blotting out with my trusty knead eraser to find the proper tone of grey. Lines down, blotted, lightly shaded, blotted, crosshatched, lightly shaded, blotted, re-hatched and so on and so forth with 4H to F and darker where needed.
I found a flow in this and felt good about it, and then it was time to do the stock. That’s not metal. I chose to texture the stock fairly rough, as if it was a rough fiber glass stock. I really dug in and made larger deeper cutting marks with my pencils here. This was the first time doing this as well, getting the proper tone of grey was not easy for me. I erased and blotted clean multiple times and by chance came across a method that gave me what I was happy with. Not what I was looking for. What I was looking for was in my mind’s eye, but as an artist, I was not capable of creating it. But I was in acceptance of what I stumbled onto. I am not a photo realistic artist, not even close. And I am ok with that, and I was happy with the final drawing. That was the goal, to be happy with the drawing to want to hang it on my own wall.
I am still happy with it and learned a ton in the process. I recorded the drawing and had a friend write music for it that I felt was fitting for the reason of the drawing. While working on the drawing I often listened to the radio chatter of the battle and tribute videos on YouTube. That and my son got me hooked on The Stupendium. Odd combination but what are you gonna do?
Just be grateful men for men like MSG Gary Gordon, SFC Randy Shughart and their teammates.
In total the pencil to paper time was about 60 hours and another 20 hours of cleaning up in the computer for prints. Worth every second!
*Training with firearms is an inherently dangerous activity, so is drawing them.
*This post and the information herein is for informational and educational purposes only. Use at your own risk. Always follow the 5 rules of Firearms Safety when handling any firearm and its drawing.
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Guns and Art 
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