Thursday, December 11, 2008

Blast from the Past #49 repost: Exoskeleton concept for bad guys

In my first year of trying to come up with toy designs for the Playmates TMNT toy line, I drew this sketch for a mechanical exoskeleton, one of several designs for vehicles to be used by villains in the TMNT universe. (I'm not sure why I started to ink it and then stopped.) In this case, it was to be used by one of the Shredder's animal mutants -- the bulldog mutant dude piloting this rig was one of several mutant animal characters we sketched up for Playmates (this guy never made it to toy shelves, though). I have a better drawing or two of him around someplace -- maybe I'll post those sometime.



Anyway, I really hoped Playmates would make this toy -- basically because I wanted to play with it! But as I recall, we were told it was to expensive to produce, and it was shelved. Ironically, several years later Playmates produced an extensive -- and very cool -- line of toys which were almost all exoskeleton vehicles, for a property called EXO-SQUAD. I guess timing IS everything. -- PL

P.S. What's the old saying -- "All things come to he who waits"? Playmates eventually produced some nifty "Turtleized" exoskeleton-type vehicles for the Turtles in 2005 -- the "M.E.C.H. Wrekkers" line. -- PL

8 comments:

  1. And yet no bad guy ones for them to fight.
    Gotta have the bag guys, they always had the best outfits ;)

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  2. Pretty cool suit...I want a ripley figure to go in mine!

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  3. -->> ...also those funky little Mini - mutants ones similar to this effect due soon.

    >v<

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  4. And Allies, Vaughn! Don't forget, life is nothing without friends and allies by your side...

    >.< As of this writing, it's been well over a year since we've had any good guys other than the Turtles released in figure form.

    Where are the bloody allies?

    ~Rev. Steven

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  5. I couldn't tell if this was a repost or is a new post, but I'd LOVE to see pictures of that bulldog mutant you sketched up!

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  6. This almost reminds me of a design that was used in the Future Shark Trilogy. I know it was said in one of the blogs that the land shark mutant was an old design dug up from back in the day. could it be the same thing with the device Armaggon piloted in the Future Shark Trilogy? Either or, great stuff!

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  7. -->> ..Damm , Nick your right !!

    But i thought Armaggon's was like ' rounder ' a bit and had a few more legs.

    >v<

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  8. Thanks DT, I remember that now. Pretty sweet stuff but I'm glad they went with Rocksteady and Bebop.

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