Variations on a theme

When I realized, back in the late 1970's or early 1980's, that photocopying technology has reached the point where one could cheaply obtain very accurate copies of one's artwork, with rich blacks throughout (early copiers had a hard time with large areas of black), and on a variety of papers (including nice white card stock), a number of opportunities presented themselves. One of the most obvious, and fun, was that I could draw something, then copy it multiple times to experiment on, all the while leaving the original drawing unaltered.

So it was with this piece. I can't remember the exact inspiration for it, but it is, I think, one of my more successful drawings -- I liked to try to come up with images which implied some kind of interesting untold story, and occasionally it worked. This piece went through several iterations. First, here is the inked drawing.



I then photocopied it and tried a few variations. This one -- obviously abandoned when I didn't like where it was going -- was an attempt to render it in shades of grey using grey markers.



Then I tried applying tones with my airbrush.



Later, Kevin and I did our own color versions of the piece. It's interesting to note our different approaches to coloring it. Here's my version...



... and here's Kevin's.



Hmmm... you know, looking at these again makes me think it might be fun to try some computer coloring on it.-- PL

Blast from the Past repost #8: Dodecahedron ornament

At one time I liked to do somewhat elaborate personal Christmas cards, especially ones which included some kind of design which required construction. This is one of those, done in 1985. When carefully cut out, folded, and assembled, it forms a dodecahedron (twelve-sided solid) which can be hung as an ornament on a Christmas tree AND used as a desk calendar (only for the year 1986, unfortunately... although I suppose that eventually we will have a year with matching dates... I just don't know when that will be). What fun! I designed this one and drew all of the little seasonal Turtle illustrations.






Below is the instruction sheet for assembly of the dodecahedron TMNT calendar/ornament, penciled, inked, and hand-lettered (yuck!) by me. If I were to do something like this today, it would be a lot easier -- and the lettering would look much better -- using my computer. This particular design was done back in the days of physical "paste up" -- in fact, in some places you can see the shadow lines created in the photocopying process. -- PL

Hallowe'en cover for "Scat" free comics magazine

Here's something a little different. This was a drawing I did for a Hallowe'en-themed issue of "Scat", the free comics magazine I co-founded with some other Northampton-area artists back in the late 1970's. The image is actually based on a friend I had in the area at that time, an antique dealer who had a cool collection of pumpkin artifacts.



As fans familiar with the minutiae of Mirage Studios history know, it was a discarded copy of "Scat" that Kevin Eastman found on a bus he was taking between Northampton and Amherst that eventually led him to meet me, and... well, you know the rest. -- PL

Alien soldier

This is a pre-TMNT Laird/Eastman collaboration. Kevin and I did a number of these as we were figuring out how best to work together, as our original plan for Mirage Studios was to collaborate on illustrations for magazines, book covers, newspapers -- basically, anyone who would hire us! (We never actually got any of that kind of work, but that's another story.)


Kevin liked to take some of the inked art I had already done, photocopy it, mount the photocopy on foam core or some other kind of stiff board, and then color it with Dr. Martin's dyes. This was one such experiment, a drawing I did in 1983. I remember being very envious of his facility with color. -- PL

"Blast from the Past" #91: "Gorefolio" artwork

Taking a break from the reposts of old "Blast from the Past" entries, here's a new one. I think it was in the late 1980's or early 1990's that a bunch of the Mirage artists put together a horror-themed porfolio of prints, which I'm pretty sure we titled the "Scare Crew Gorefolio". I can't remember if we ever actually sold any of them, but it was a fun project. This is the piece that I created for the portfolio. -- PL

Blast from the Past #4 repost: "Alien Gardener"

Most people don't know this, but the first TMNT movie originally had a different ending. As scripted, it went something like this: Shortly after the big battle with the Foot and the defeat of the Shredder, the now unemployed April decided to take the concept of a comic book based on the adventures of the turtles to a publisher to see if they would publish it. In a scene set in the publisher's office, April and Danny Pennington (her old boss' son) were shown waiting anxiously as the publisher dude perused her sketches and proposal... which he then handed back to her, saying something like "This is too weird... nobody will buy this comic!" Whereupon the Turtles -- who had been clinging to the wall outside the office window -- react with various expressions of comic dismay, and I think Mike actually falls off the building.

Anyway, this scene was actually filmed. The movie people asked us at Mirage Studios if we could quickly come up with some wild art to decorate the walls of this comic publisher's office, art that would represent characters and comics published by this company. We all got into it, and turned out about half a dozen pieces... including this one.



It was a piece of art I had lying around, just something I did for fun. Ryan Brown designed the wonderful "Alien Gardener" logo and I pasted it all together as a mock-up comic cover.

If New Line Cinema ever gets around to releasing a "special edition" DVD of the first TMNT movie, it would be cool to have this scene and several others that I'm aware of included as "deleted scenes". Hey, you never know...! -- PL

UPDATE 09-15-08: I found the original black and white drawing for "Alien Gardener", and thought you might like to see it. -- PL

Omzig

I'm going to be delving into my old folders of stuff that I had collected and scanned for my old "Blast from the Past" section of the "Planet Racers" website. I only wish that I had been more organized with that project, i.e. putting things I'd already used into a folder labeled "Already Used". I remember most but not all of the things I used in BftP, leading to the slightly embarrassing duplication of a BftP entry about those Will Vinton Claymation Turtles in one of my early "palblog" posts. I will endeavor to avoid this in future posts.

Anyway, I found this odd piece in one of those BftP folders -- it's a fun little drawing of what you might call "Gizmo's Evil Twin". Gizmo, as all fans of cool non-oil drinking comic book robots know, is the creation of Michael Dooney. Together with his giant dog thing sidekick Fluffy, Gizmo traveled through space in his ship 'Soto, having wacky adventures.



At some point, Mike and I obviously collaborated on this sketch, but for the life of me I can't recall how it came about. It's possible that we did it deliberately, or maybe Mike started a drawing of Gizmo, didn't like it, and was about to throw it away when I grabbed it and started playing around. I really don't know -- maybe MD himself will show up here and cast some light on the subject.

But I can see clearly Mike's style in the head and torso of the character, and my style in the various spiky accoutrements and the gun. I can't remember who decided to name the character "Omzig", but it was certainly the result of much careful thinking. -- PL