Blast from the Past #266: Drawings in silver pen on black paper

I was doing a little bit of cleaning yesterday and came across these drawings. They are from 2005, and I think I did them at the NY ComicCon.



Beginning around that time, I decided I would bring with me to shows a few pads of black paper and several silver Sharpie® pens, just for something a little different. People seemed to get a kick out of a sketch done this way, instead of the traditional black marker on white paper.



I believe I did these near the end of the last day of the show, when we had a few rare moments of not being swamped at our tables. -- PL

Blast from the Past #202: Triceraton fighting tentacled robot

This is another one of those drawings that I keep thinking I have already posted, even though my search of this blog does not turn it up.



I did this one back in 1983 to combine, for fun, a couple of my favorite things -- Triceratons and weird robots with shiny Fugitoid-style extremities. -- PL

Blast from the Past #153: Turtles fighting Triceraton

Here's yet another thing I found during my efforts to organize my collection of Jim Lawson artwork. I can't remember exactly why I did this drawing, but it's kind of fun. -- PL

Blast from the Past #147: Triceraton archaeologist

This is a fun drawing from back in 1983, quite likely pre-TMNT. I think I may have done it as an entry in the "Fandom Directory" art contest, but I'm not sure. -- PL

Triceraton by Tokka

It's a sad, almost inevitable fact of life that during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, some things fall through the cracks and don't get attended to in as timely a fashion as they should. So it was with this cool gift I got from "Tokka" (aka Dave) last month. He fashioned a wild-looking custom Triceraton -- I think it is based on an existing figure of some sort, customized with additional details in some type of sculpting medium, and painted in Dave's unique style.







The figure has been sitting in my office at Mirage since I got it, and I've been meaning to post photos of it, but it just kind of got lost in the swirl of things. Dave, here's a belated "Thank you!" -- PL

Blast from the Past #107: Mirage Studios Triceraton iron-on

This drawing was done by me in 1983, and was used as the basis for an iron-on t-shirt transfer. Kevin and I had found this great copy shop in Portsmouth, NH, which had one of the first color copiers. This machine could copy your color artwork onto iron-on transfer material. Of course, we had to try it, and made several different designs.



Successfully getting these transfers to, well, transfer was hit-or-miss. I think we ruined a number of t-shirts. But occasionally they came out well. I think I still have one or two from those days, somewhat worse for wear (literally).

This design was probably done with the thought that it might serve as some kind of advertising for our fledgling business, Mirage Studios. Just how many jobs we thought we might get as the result of one or both of us walking around Dover wearing these t-shirts, I don't know.

Curiously, although this is obviously an ad for Mirage Studios, there is a "© 1983 Peter Laird" line on it. It makes me wonder if this is actually a drawing I had done prior to the forming of Mirage Studios. Or it could just be a mistake. -- PL

Triceraton with crow quill pen

I'm not sure why I drew this Triceraton in 1984 holding a crow quill pen, but it was probably for fun. I was trying out my airbrush around this time, too -- I used it for some of the shading on this piece.



Incidentally, I used to do a lot of my inking with crow quill pens. I had one favorite nib that I think I used for about five years, before the tip finally got bent and thus useless (a typical fate for these pen tips). -- PL

Laird colors on "Early Triceraton"

A while back I posted an image of an early "proto-Triceraton" that I had drawn and Kevin had colored. This new image is of that same drawing, but with my colors, including an abstract background incorporating a fun new technique that someone (can't remember who) had told us about -- sprinkling salt on the art while it was still wet. Although the art still has the 1983 date, this version was probably done a year or two later. -- PL