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

Blast from the Past repost #18: "Team Mirage" Hare Scrambles Turtle

From 1992, this was one of the first of the series of amazing drawings Jim Lawson did for Team Mirage, the motorcycle racing team which I sponsored for several years in the mid-1990’s.



The drawing represents an off-road style of racing called “hare scrambles” -- as a matter of fact, the first racer signed by Team Mirage was a hare scrambles ace named Tom Norton. I designed the turtle-head graphics and color scheme for Tom’s race bikes, which were Hondas that first year. -- PL

(The following promotional blurb was included with the original posting of this "Blast from the Past" back in 2001. Seems like it was only yesterday... -- PL)

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FOR TMNT COMIC BOOK FANS!
3/2/2001

As of this past week, Jim Lawson has started penciling, from my plot, the first issue of the all-new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book series which should see print sometime this year, hopefully late summer or early fall. I'm not sure what kind of publishing schedule the new book will have -- possibly bimonthly like the original TMNT comic. It will be black and white, and the first issue (at least as it stands now, in rough layout form) will be thirty-two pages long. I'm very excited to be working on a turtle comic book again, and even more so to be working with my good friend, motorcycling buddy, and PLANET RACERS collaborator Jim Lawson. Now I have to go start inking...!

Blast from the Past repost #17: Archie TMNT Classics digest #2 cover

Some of the Archie TMNT Adventures comics were reprinted in digest-sized editions. For this one, TMNT Classics Digest #2, Steve Lavigne drew this rough cover layout...



... which I referred to when I penciled the cover (below). Ryan Brown inked these pencils (I think he may have inked all of the covers I did for the Archie TMNT comics).



And here's the final cover:



It's a little weird for me to look at these covers, as -- when I did them -- I had to make myself conform to the style of the animated Turtles, i.e. no tails and eyeballs, among other things that I would not ordinarily draw when I drew the Turtles. -- PL

Blast from the Past #16 repost: Wistariahurst Museum "The Art of Mirage Studios" show poster

In the summer of 1988, we had the great pleasure of having the work of the Mirage Studios artists of that time -- Michael Dooney, Eric Talbot, Jim Lawson, Steve Lavigne, Ryan Brown, Kevin Eastman, and me -- showcased in a wonderful exhibit at the Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke, MA (just down the road from Northampton). It was a lot of fun, and this is the poster from the event (with an image by Jim Lawson and Ryan Brown) -- signed by all of the exhibiting artists.



Hmm... I wonder if anyone took any photos of the event? I can't recall seeing any. It's kind of startling to think that this happened twenty years ago! Damn, I'm old... -- PL

P.S. If you're interested, more information about the museum can be found at:

http://www.wistariahurst.org/

Blast from the Past #97: Gizmo and a Turtle play cards

This is a charming piece from the early 1980's, I would imagine... a pin-up drawn by Michael Dooney of his robot character Gizmo Sprocket playing cards with a Turtle (it's not clear which one). I like how The Turtle apparently has won Gizmo's cap in one hand, while Gizmo took the Turtle's bandana in another. -- PL

Blast from the Past repost #15: TMNT montage painting

I don't think this was ever used for anything, but I like the rendering I did of the smaller “floating” turtles. Can’t say I’m digging the color choices I made for the Shredder and Casey Jones... what the heck was I thinking?! At least the Triceraton is the right color.

I think this was one of the few times I used liquid acrylics in one of my pieces. -- PL

"Blast from the Past" #96: Sketches for Foot robot from "City at War"

The robot which the tech faction of the Foot created to fight the other Foot factions in "City at War" went through a couple of design changes. This is my first sketch for the robot.



I kind of liked the odd, asymmetrical layout of this design, but I was also not really happy with the fact that it didn't look very dangerous. So I thought about it some more. and decided to go with this sleeker, more buglike version, which is pretty much how the robot ended up looking in the comics. -- PL