When I was a kid, I was a huge nerd and since I was a kid during the late 80's early 90's, I was a huge nerd of what was cool for kids my age at the time and that was undeniably, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I loved the comics and the cartoon and the first 2 movies. I had every game for every console, I had clothes slather in Ninja Turtles images (one of which I still own and [thanks to being a fat kid who slimmed down] I will still wear sometimes...), I had 5 super dense garbage bags-worth of nothing but Turtles, cups, shoes, you name it - I had it.

You may be asking yourself, "why is this ass telling me about his Tortophilia?" I'll tell you. I haven't really thought about the Turtles since that time as a kid and when I'de heard that there was to be a NEW Ninja Turtles movie (i'de heard this a while back. At the time it was said that John Woo was to direct it but, I don't know who actually ended up doing it. Did anyone else hear this?), I was a bit nostalgic but skeptical. I've seen the new series and it seems ok but this movie... "this thing better be more than just 'ok'," I thought. I saw it and it was good but I felt completely detatched from the work. To put it simply, those where NOT my turtles.

This image was born of that. That feeling that I got from knowing I'll never see the Turtles I loved on any screen again... well, that just made me WANT to see them, even if I had to draw them myself. So I did. That was not enough. I colored them and now my hankering for old Turtles is fulfilled. I even tried to color them in a bit of a Kevin Eastman style (remember how he used to draw the turtles on rooftops? there's one image out there that is still one of my favorites.)
My hope is for this image to cure the same feeling in others as it has in me.

enjoy!

time: approx 3hrs
tools: pencils, sketchbook, photoshop CS2