Episode 4.001: "All Good Things..."

Posts tend to be far and few nowadays since my last project. Although I have not abandoned my "Thank You" project, It's getting much harder to organise my recent digital drawings on my now new desk top. Hopefully with a new scanner and more room to place all my media stuff in one place things will be more consistant. Also, after much consideration, nostalgia hit me square in the face about my last time I was employed to 4 Kids Entertainment. After cleaning my hard drive and transferring files I stumbled upon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle designs, both recent and new, that took me back to a time I really loved being in animation. Contrary to what anyone says about 4 Kids as a company, I never saw it in that vain. It was the people in that company that I loved most. Everyone whom I worked with there is still very close to me and I hope in some way the feeling is mutual for them as well. Especially with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle crew. Unlike any other show 4 Kids produced, Turtles was different. To my knowledge, TMNT was the first show produced by 4 kids to be done completely in -house. 4-Kids would completely staff the entire show post production. I joined late 2002, almost in it's inception, so I was very lucky to grow with the show since the beginning. It was one the most Greatest experiences of my life.....

My first stint on TMNT was doing storyboards freelance but later I was invited to join the staff full time to revise storyboards. My time on the show allowed me to expand in other areas I never dreamed I would do. New experiences were presented to me every year for 7 seasons. Each new endeavor brought both fullfilling and refreshingly new facets to my artistic experience. With TMNT ending in late 2009, I'd like to show the fruits of my labors.

Every now and then, production let me dabble in design. I tend to love all my designs but I try not get too attached to certain ones that do not get picked for approval. Deep down though, I love the designs that do not get approved. It's these designs that I feel I did with as little compromise as could be possible on such a popular franchise.

Ironically some of these designs ended up being final. I call it Luck. But I'll always see these designs as the results of a man given the chance to be a kid again. Initial brainstorming is always a lot of fun and for most of these (Hell, all of these) , I was pretty much left to my own devices. The next couple of scattered posts will showcase the designs I was able to salvage from 4-Kids before the TMNT studio in NYC closed shop. There are more files out there, but I fortunatly got my hands on these which I can talk about in the next couple of posts. I hope people will get a kick out of these as much as I did.