Blast from the Past #59 repost: "The Unknown"

(Note -- alert palblog readers [really, are there any other kind?!) will notice that I am skipping a reposting of the original BftP #58. This was the one about the Will Vinton "Claymation" Turtles, something I accidentally duplicated already in one of my early palblog posts. -- PL)

I did these sketches back in -- I think -- 1988 or 1989. Playmates was looking for ideas to expand the TMNT action figure line, and I thought this guy -- who I was calling "The Unknown" -- would make a cool villain. Basically, the idea was that he was the result of a failed experiment to combine two species in one mutant. Because the procedure only partly worked, The Unknown had to keep most of his internal organs inside a protective artificial shell. I thought it would be neat to have a toy with guts and eyeballs and stuff that would be floating around inside a clear helmet. Playmates actually made a spiffy figure based on this idea, and I think they ended up calling him "Mutagen Man". (The top drawing is my first version, the bottom my second.)





As for which two types of creatures were used in the creation of this miserable mutant, I'm pretty sure I intended his left side to be some kind of primate like a gorilla or orangutan, but his right side... hmm... looks like a giant insect of some type. I guess that must have come from some other nefarious experiment with the mutagen. -- PL

Blast from the Past #132: Donatello riding creature

For the life of me, I can't recall exactly why I drew this piece. But it looks like I had fun with it! -- PL

Blast from the Past #56 repost: Kirbyship

Some years ago I had the idea of bringing together the Mirage black and white turtles with the Archie color version of the TMNT, and I was going to use the concept (introduced in the Mirage DONATELLO one-issue "micro-series") of the artist Kirby (based on the late great Jack "King" Kirby) and his "warp crystal". The character of Kirby would use the cosmic powers of the warp crystal to bridge the gap between the two universes (Mirage and Archie), and we would see the color turtles interacting with the black and white ones (literally -- I planned to do the art in color to represent whatever was in the Archie TMNT universe, and black and white with grey tones to represent the Mirage TMNT universe, sometimes mixing the styles on the same page). I intended to work with my pal Ken Mitchroney, who had penciled many of the Archie TMNT books -- he would handle the pencils on the color TMNT elements, whereas I would do the black and white TMNT stuff. I had written out a rough plot, and done the sketch below (of the ship Kirby creates to travel back and forth between universes), but the project never got off the ground, for a variety of reasons. -- PL

Blast from the Past #131: Foot Tech Ninja design

Back in 2001, when I was working with Lloyd Goldfine and the 4Kids crew on the first year of the new TMNT tv show, one of the new concepts we came up with was the "Foot Tech Ninja" -- basically, Foot ninja with technological enhancements. (In retrospect, this wasn't a completely new idea, I guess -- you could see it as an offshoot of the original idea that Kevin and I came up with when we did the "City at War" story arc in the Volume 1 comics, with the Foot Clan splintered into several factions, one of which was tech-based.)



In an attempt to settle on a design for the Foot Tech Ninja, I dug out a sketch which had been done during the conceptual process for the Rainbow Studios TMNT CGI project which never materialized. I can't recall who did the sketch, but I always thought it was a nice one, and I tweaked it a bit to show Lloyd what I thought might be a good look for these guys. I think the final result was pretty close to this. -- PL

Blast from the Past #55 repost: Donatello in new costume color study

Believe it or not, Kevin was going to throw this one away! I’m glad I was there back in 1985 to stop him and beg him to give this drawing to me, which he graciously did.



To this day I can’t understand why he didn’t like it -- I think it’s a very cool high-contrast ink drawing with a nifty experimental color effect (not to mention it shows Donatello in an alternate costume design we were thinking about using). -- PL

Blast from the Past #130: design for the "Battle Nexus" arena

Back in 2003, when I was working with Lloyd Goldfine and the 4Kids crew on the first of the "Battle Nexus" episodes, I had some ideas for how I thought the arena in which the fighters would clash could work. Basically, it was a multi-tiered area with each tier being a different shape, and divided into discreet segments. Reflecting the "elimination" aspect of the competitions, each successive tier would have half the number of segments of the tier below it, culminating in the single segment in the top tier wherein the final battle to determine the Battle Nexus champion would take place.



This design wasn't used as is -- I think it was deemed too complicated -- but elements of it ended up in the final look of the arena as it appeared in those episodes. I used one of my favorite 3D programs, Bryce, to rough out the design I had in mind. -- PL

Blast from the Past #54 repost: "Space Leonardo" pencils

I can't remember exactly why I drew these two view of Leonardo in a space suit.



It might have been as a possible toy design for Playmates, or as a sketch study for the cover I did for one of the Palladium Books TMNT role-playing games which showed all four Turtles in space. Whatever the reason, I kinda like it! -- PL