TMNT #31 with Peter Laird head sketch!

I stopped down at Mirage Studios a couple of days ago to deliver a box full of one hundred copies of TMNT Volume 4 #31, copies which I'd autographed and also within which I had drawn a large Turtle head sketch on the inside back cover.

I decided to lay them all out, with the sketch pages exposed, on the Mirage conference room table, and take a photo. Why? Who the heck knows.

      This photo only shows part of the group -- I couldn't get a good angle to show them all, and the photos I took to create a panoramic image (using the PanoramaMaker5 software) which would show them all didn't work with that program, for some reason unknown to me.

While taking the photographs, I decided to count the copies to make sure there were actually one hundred… and was startled to find that there were only eighty-eight.

D'oh! I thought I was done with this! I guess I have to get out another twelve copies and grab my Sharpie markers again. -- PL

     [Note -- these signed and sketched-in copies are for a special Mirage Licensing promotion seen here:

     http://www.miragelicensing.com/paypal/mirage04.html

     Go towards the bottom of the page to find the details.]

Shellback visit

I stopped in at Shellback Artworks in Wells, Maine, today to see my buddy Steve Lavigne. We hung out together for a couple of hours, during which time I signed a bunch of things, inked a drawing of Steve's in a book for a fan, and did exactly one dozen large TMNT head sketches for Steve.

Here's Steve posing with one of them:

I'm not sure how much Steve is going to charge for them, but I would typically charge about $40 (forty dollars) if I did these at a signing. Steve may also color some of them, which would bump the price up to perhaps double that. If you want to know more, you should contact Steve through Shellback's Facebook page. -- PL

https://www.facebook.com/steve.lavigne.777?fref=ts

Doodle Day, November 11, 2012

I will be participating in "Doodles for Dollars" (aka "Doodle Day") at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA on November 11, 2012. It's a part of the Museum's tenth anniversary "Book Signing Bash", and will feature the man himself, Eric Carle, acclaimed illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and me doing quick sketches -- doodles -- to help raise money for the museum. I intend to do as many black and white TMNT head sketches as I can in the time allotted (I think it will go on for about an hour or so). Here's what it says on the Museum's website:

"10th Anniversary Book Signing Bash
November 11, 2012
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Free with Museum Admission

The 10th Anniversary celebration continues with book signings from Iconic Images artists, special concert by the South Hadley Children’s Chorus, and “Doodles for Dollars” featuring Eric Carle, Tony DiTerlizzi, and Peter Laird ($10 per doodle.) Check back for more information about the specific schedule."

Should be fun! -- PL

Lots of little Turtle heads

A couple of days ago I found myself in my office at Mirage, with about half an hour before a conference call, and decided to sign the rest of one carton of Fugitoid collector figures. Actually, I don't sign the figures -- just the boxes. Dan Berger usually asks me to do this a few at a time, as we get orders, so I thought it might be good to get ahead of the curve a little bit.

When I sign the boxes, I do a quick little Turtle head sketch on each one, and as I put them back into the carton after signing them all, I thought it looked kind of cute -- all those little white boxes with little Turtle heads on them.

So I took a photo. -- PL

One hundred and forty-five down, fifty-five left to go! (Plus...)

I came in to the office today to grab a bicycle for my daily ride, and took some TMNT #30's with me, thinking I might find a nice spot somewhere along the way to do more head sketches. I ended up sitting in the shade on some steps at Smith College, and enjoyed the air while I finished another twenty of them.

When I got here this morning, I was pleased to find these five copies of TMNT #30 sitting in front of my office door.



Yesterday I had asked the dudes if they would each do smallish head sketches in these five copies of the book, so that five lucky people would get copies with a sketch from each of us. (These copies will be randomly inserted into the order stream.) Jim Lawson had to show everybody up by doing full figures. I like the sepia ones Eric did... and check out the wacky expression Dan gave one of his! (Must be Mikey...) -- PL

One hundred and twenty-five down, seventy-five left to go!

Just finished another twenty-five head sketches in copies of TMNT #30 and gave them to Katie.

Also, Eric gave me this photo of some of the head sketches that he recently finished doing in copies of TMNT #30. Cool, huh? -- PL

Berger, Lawson and Talbot Turtle head sketches now available in TMNT issue #29!

A few days ago, I was asked if Dan, Jim and/or Eric would be willing to do head sketches in issue #29 of TMNT as well as the new issue #30. Today I asked them, and they said yes! The same rules apply as for those sketches they are doing in TMNT #30. I think we have a few hundred #29's left. -- PL

Forty-five down, one hundred and fifty-five left to go...

I worked a little bit yesterday and some more today on doing the head sketches in issue #30 of Volume 4, and I managed to do another thirty-three of them.

For the ones I worked on today, I used a 90% cool grey Prismacolor marker. I decided to try this to give a little more variety to the look of the sketches. I like how they came out.

Here's a photo of some of the new head sketches, taken in the front office at Mirage Studios. -- PL

Twelve down, one hundred and eighty-eight left to go...

Today I started doing the promised head sketches on the inside back covers of our copies of TMNT Volume 4 #30. I got these twelve done this afternoon.



My plan is to definitely do this in two hundred copies, and possibly a few more (I'll decide that when I get to the 200th one). But the exciting news today is that, in addition to Eric Talbot, Jim Lawson and Dan Berger have also agreed to do some head sketches in these books! Woohoo! (Maybe we can even get Dooney to join in...!)

I'm pretty sure Dan posted the ordering information today over on ninjaturtles.com. Be aware that it's one head sketch per book, and you should make clear when ordering who you want to do it. -- PL

Blast from the Past #150: rough sketch for cover of Volume 1, issue #4

This sketch was done by me to work out the composition for the cover of the fourth issue of Volume One of the TMNT comics. This cover was to be the last of our two-color covers before we moved to the full color ones. (The continuing success of the comic had given us the funds to allow for the more expensive photographic color separation process -- all the two-color covers were created using handmade separations.)



It's interesting (to me, at least) to note by this sketch that at the time I drew it, I had yet to work out the final design for the Utroms' hand weapons. -- PL