Blast from the Past #695: Sketchbook page 40, idea for fifth Turtle

Here on page 40 of the sketchbook is a drawing which depicts another version of the proposed "fifth Turtle", this one musclebound in what seems to me to be done in a somewhat deliberately humorous fashion. -- PL

Blast from the Past #694: Sketchbook page 39, Ideas for fifth Turtle?

On page 39 of the sketchbook, I drew these rough sketches of what I think are some ideas for a slightly different facial look for the proposed "fifth Turtle"... including what appears to be either a tattoo or some kind of face paint in one image.

I also noticed on this page that I drew the "fifth Turtle" with three fingers and a thumb, as opposed to the classic TMNT look of TWO fingers and a thumb. And looking back at the previous page, I see that I did the same thing with this more finished drawing of the "fifth Turtle". I didn't notice that when I posted it yesterday. -- PL

Blast from the Past #693: Sketchbook page 38, design for "Kirby, the 5th Turtle"

Here on page 38 of the sketchbook we have my attempt at a design for the character of "Kirby", who was supposed to be a "fifth Turtle" in the proposed -- but never made -- fourth live-action TMNT movie. This drawing appears to have been inked by me with one or two markers.

It's very odd for me to see Turtles without their kneepads -- they look so, well... naked, with their knees hanging out in the breeze.

I have to also say that this one makes me cringe just a little bit. Some of the details of the period in which this drawing was made are lost to faulty memory, but I do seem to remember a number of heated discussions about the studio's desire to have another Turtle in this fourth live-action movie, and that desire colliding with my feeling (as I have stated a number of times before) that just adding more Turtles is a creatively bankrupt idea. It's easy, it's lazy, and -- generally speaking -- it's stupid.

As I recall, the only way I could agree to go in this direction--  and not puke -- was to imagine that this "fifth Turtle" was NOT just another turtle that happened to be in the bowl with our original four Turtles and then somehow gotten lost (but conveniently mutated and trained and equipped in similar fashion) -- an idea distressingly common and popular among some of the movie and TV and toy people we'd dealt with over the years -- but instead a Turtle from another dimension in some ways parallel to the dimension of our original Turtles.

Truth be told, I never really liked the idea, but I was prepared to accept it if it meant we could do another movie. As it happened, that deal fell apart, and that fourth live-action movie never happened.

I'm kind of glad it never did. -- PL