Recently, the technology of incremental forming for sheet metal components has drawn attention for small-batch productions. In the present investigation, a forming tool containing a freely-rotating ball was developed and applied to forming of various shapes with full annealed Al 1050 sheet. Deformation characteristics occurring during forming with this tool was examined through FEM analysis and grid measurement. It was found that deformation modes developed along a straight path and around a corner are close to those of plane-strain and equi-biaxial stretching, respectively, and that cracks occur mostly at corners for the same depth of tool. FEM analysis was successfully applied to this special type of forming process and provided comparable results to the measurements from experiment.