TMNT Macro Series Collection Cover

After I turned in my last TMNT Macro series cover (Raphael), editor Bobby Curnow asked if I'd be up for doing one more so that the trade collection had new artwork. In the past the trades collecting my Micro Series' & Turtles in Time runs reused work from those covers. So this was a nice treat to get to put all the turtles together as a tidy bow to end this run.

To the left you can see the finished cover art, but below I'll go through the steps and stages from sketch to finished colors:




Sketches:
As usual, I like drawing characters separately on copy paper to help me work out poses, and rework details by overlaying more sheets while working on a lightpad. I also find it hard to compose an arangemet of the Turtles where each gets a fair representation in terms of scale and face-time AND there are no odd tangents with each other OR their weapons.

So over the corse of several sheets for the four turtles and a photo referenced study of the City Hall subway platform in NYC, I had what I needed to assemble something to show Bobby.

Layout:
Since each turtle was separately drawn and scanned, I could easily move, shift, resize, rotate, and tint them to help figure out the puzzle of a layout where, as I said above, there were no tangents. In this stage I did have to make an alteration to Leo's sword because it was always covering part of Mike's face until I changed it, I realized I never finished drawing one of Raph's legs, and was able to swap in a mirror of one of Leo's, and came up with a pile of garbage to justify why/how Don was standing up higher than the rest.

I picked the abandoned City Hall platform not because of it being an homage in the 2nd live action movie, but because I'm fascinated by it architecturally, and love the idea of the turtles exploring abandoned spaces in NYC as potential temporary lairs/hangouts/hide-outs.

The layout it pretty fully realized as an image. I go overboard on many work-for-hire layouts so that the editors and licensors can clearly see what I'm going for without having to do much interpreting and guesswork about the intent for the final art.

Inks:
Once the layout stage was approved, I was able to move on to the inks. I printed out the digitally composited layout sketches on copy paper, and then taped that to the back of a sheet of 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad, I can see through the surface of the bristol to the printout below to use as a guide instead of traditional pencils.

For pens I used Copic Multiliner SPs...mostly the 0.7 nib, but I used some much finer sizes around the eyes.

Flats:
When the inks were approved, I moved on to the boring bit of coloring known as flatting. This is where you digitally color in the lines establishing base colors for everything with a hard edged brush. The flat colors makes it easier when you do go to render the final colors to isolate areas so you can shade and texture them accordingly.

Now's also a good moment to mention that each turtle has some carry-over item from my individual Macro Series cover of them: Leo's hooded poncho, Raph's shuriken bandolier, Don's welding goggles, and Mike's bindle bandanna tied around his arm.


Final Colors:
Here again you can see the final colors for the piece. I rendered all the characters and most of the background using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop with a textured brush.

The tile details as well as the spot outlines on Mike's bindle bandanna were given a color hold, and area of the inks I wanted to be a painted color and not black. The lights were given some extra layers to help with the glow effect.

The TMNT Macro series Trade will be available in June of 2019.



Here's a link to all my past TMNT covers: https://davidpetersen.blogspot.com/search/label/TMNT

TMNT Macro Series Raphael Cover Process

My final TMNT Macro Series cover for IDW is Raphael. This marks my 17th Turtles cover for IDW, and it has been a pleasure to do them all. My first TMNT cover was of Raphael, so to end this round with him feels a bit full-circle.

To see my past TMNT covers click here.

The finished art for the Raphael cover is on the left, but below I'll walk through the steps to create this cover piece.



Layouts/Pencils:
As with the other Macro Series covers, editor Bobby Curnow provided me an outline of the events of the issue, but also gave me free reign to do something 'classic'. Part of the Raph story takes place in Central Park. And since the other 3 covers in this series have their locations as a main element in the composition, picking the right Central Park monument was key. I toyed with The Dairy, The Carousel, Belvedere Castle, and Columbus Circle monument...but opted for the juxtaposition of the Angel of the Waters atop the Bethesda Fountain.

Raph was drawn on copy paper (2 sheets, I redrew one arm and his sai) and the Angel of the Waters was drawn from a reference photo. All of these drawings were scanned into photoshop composited (with some digital pigeons, & ninja stars along with some stock photo trees) and then quickly painted to help me 'see' the final composition and to make it easier for the editor and Nickelodeon understand what I was doing.

Inks:
I printed out the above layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my light pad, I was able to see through the bristol surface to the printout, and I used that as a guide to ink from. I used Copic Multiliner pens...mostly the 0.7 nib.

Translating the texture of the shading on the statue was the tough part. Knowing how far to go. I like the soft nature of my pencil version more than the inked one...but sometimes, that happens.



Color Flats:
Once the inks were finished I scanned the original artwork to start the coloring process. This step is called 'flatting' where you digitally paint in the colors (could be the final palate, could be made up colors) to establish what areas are different colors from one another. Raph's skin is different from his front shell, and that's different from the sky, or the pigeons, or the statue, or his pads or arm wraps.

In this step I also added color holds (areas I wanted the ink work to be a color and not black) to the moon's outline, the stars, and the trees.


Color:
The final step was to render all the color. I did this step live over on my Twitch channel. I do all of the highlighting, shading and texture using the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop and a stock brush. 

I did add some more color holds on Raph's cuts and also some glowy bits on the edges of the statue & pigeons in front of the moon.

...oh...and I just found out, I'm doing another cover for this series...the trade!


2019 Appearances TBA

TMNT Macro Series Leonardo Cover Process

This is my third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Macro series cover for IDW, and it features Leonardo. Originally the order of the turtles' macro series was different, and Leo was last, but a scheduling switch at the publisher gets Leo ahead of Raph.

You can see my previous TMNT covers here.

To the left is the finished art for the cover, and below in this blogpost, I'll go through the various steps to create the final piece.




Layout/Pencils:
The first step was to come up with what the cover was going to be about. In the issue, Leo does have a battle in the woods, and though my version isn't as it happens in the issue, it felt like a way to explore Leo in a more aggressive posture while also paying homage to some old Eastman & Laird drawn story notes.

I drew Leo on a sheet of copy paper (or actually a few that I cobbled together digitally taking the parts I liked from different sheets) in a birch tree forest. He's wearing the hooded garment he wears in issue #11 of the original Mirage TMNT series. I also opted to have him wounded, paying homage to the moment in that same Mirage Run when Leo is almost killed by the foot clan (in the 1990 movie, it's Raph instead of Leo...an odd coincidence considering the issue order swap here)

The color, snow and breath were digitally done to help me see the piece as a layout, but also for my editor Bobby as well as the license holders, Nickelodeon so everyone understood what the final art was going to resemble.

Inks:
With the layout approved, I started inking the cover. I printed out the above digital composite layout and taped that to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my lightpad I'm able to see through the surface of the bristol down to the printout to use as a pencils guide as I ink. For pens I used Copic Multiliners (my pens of choice). Here I used mostly a 0.7 other than a few details where I went down to a 0.3 nib.

Texture and hatching is very important to me, and I focused it here on the gear Leo is wearing as well as all those birch trees.


Color Flats:
Once the inks were approved I could start on the coloring process. The first step of that is to 'flat' the piece by adding flat colors to establish the color areas...that Leo's hood is a different color than his bandanna, or his forearm wraps, or the sky, etc. I happened to use colors very close to my final piece, but I could have used any colors at this stage, purple skin, orange bandana, navy sky...it's just all about coloring within the lines so that it's easy to re-isolate those areas again when rendering.

In this step I also defined all the color holds, areas I wanted the inkwork to be a color other than black: The snow & the blood.



Colors:
The final step is to do all of that rendering. Adding light and shadow and texture. I do this with the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop and a stock brush.

For the falling snow I pulled out my rarely used Wacom tablet to paint in some digital snow. In Mouse Guard I've always inked dots on a separate sheet of paper, but I find that creates something a bit too graphic and hard edged. Painting digitally, I was also able to add in the breath coming out of Leo's mouth.




2018 Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 28-30
New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7

TMNT Macro Series Michelangelo Cover Process

I have done the cover for the upcoming TMNT Macro Series issue for Michelangelo issue from IDW. I was lucky enough to be asked by series editor Bobby Curnow to do covers for the 4 issue series (this being the second of which).

I've done several TMNT covers in the past and You can click here for all my past TMNT covers and the process to create them

You can see my finished cover art to the left, but below I'll walk through the steps to create the art.



Layout/Pencils:
Bobby gave me some leeway when it came to the visuals for these covers. I didn't have to do something specifically from the events of the issue and I could do something more 'classic'. After reading the outline, I decided to play on some themes rather than a literal illustration of a moment. The issue deals with Michelangelo struggling with the idea of 'home' in some ways, and wistfully idealizing his 'youth'. So I tried to do a layout that had the nostalgic feeling a Rockwell painting evokes. I wanted to have Mike on the farm, but not rely on the farmhouse architecture as visually interesting enough, and I thought of a windmill...



For the windmill, I used Google Sketch-up's library to find an already built digital model of a pump wind mill. Every photo I'd find of the type of windmill I was looking for was taken from ground level, and didn't have the details or angle I needed, so the model would be a perfect way to set the position just how I wanted it. While I was there, I also found a farmhouse model to use the geometry for. I redrew each of these elements on a light pad adding or omitting details and getting a feel for them in my own line.

I then discovered that the person who modeled the mill, didn't set up the linkage properly, and that mill wouldn't be able to spin completely around before getting hung up on itself. I had to redesign the mill's works as I was redrawing it.


Inks:
Once the above layout was composited together with my drawing of Mike, the mill, and the house (and with some added color to help myself and the editor and license holder visualize what I was aiming for in the final art), I started to ink the piece. The layout was printed out and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On a lightpad, I inked the cover with Copic Multiliners (I used the 0.7 nib mainly). On the lightpad I can see through the surface of the bristol to the printed layout and use that as a guide to ink from. This also makes the final art cleaner and with no need to erase or digitally sweep away blue-line.

Color Flats:
After I finished the inks, I scanned them at 400 resolution on my flatbed scanner. After a little tweaking to adjust the levels of the white and black areas, I did the flats for the coloring process. Flatting is adding in flat un-rendered, un-textured color. It's about establishing color areas, that Mike's skin is a different color than his shell or the sky, and where all of those areas start and stop.

I also added in the color holds at this stage. These are areas where I painted the linework as a color rather than black. Doing this helped add depth with the house, the trees, the geese, and the clouds as well as some lighting & design effects with the patch on his bag, the polka-dots on his bindle sack, and the non-brand cola bottle.


Colors: 
Here again are the final colors for the cover. To render all the tones I use the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop with a stock textured brush to get that pebbled look.

Oh, I forgot to mention the significance of the patch on the bag. I started out by wanting to give Mike more than just a bindle while he contemplates a life on the road or running away, and I added in that old army backpack similar to one my Dad bought for the camping excursions of his youth. That bag was still around when I was a kid, and a collapsible shovel was also inside it, so I drew it in here...and then I thought I'd add a patch of some group, and decided on the New York National Guard, thinking that wherever Mike got this, from the farmhouse, one of April or Casey's relatives, or somewhere in the city...the NY branch of the civilian soldiers.

2018 Appearances:

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 28-30
New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7

TMNT Macro Series cover: Donatello

For the upcoming TMNT Macro-Series, I was asked my IDW & editor Bobby Curnow to do 4 new Turtle covers, one per bandannaed brother. I've done several TMNT covers before:

You can click here for all my past TMNT covers and the process to create them

You can see the final cover artwork for the Donatello Macro Series cover to the left, but bellow I'll go through and talk step-by-step about the process to get there.



Layout/Pencils:
I was given an outline of what happens in the issue, but also given the freedom to do something unbound by the story in a 'classic' feel. I decided to take a theme of that issue (not a specific moment) of Donatello in his sewer workshop and then do my best version of how I see him in that environment...both in solitude, and also in his heaven. The shop here is a combination of my Dad's basement workshop when I was a kid and my own from that same time: glass jars of screws & nails, oxy-acetylene tanks for welding, broken old cabinets as shop storage, am/fm radio on it's last legs, milk crates for seating and storage...It's my childhood of being a maker all for Don to use.

The piece is a digital assembly of several pencil drawings then colored to make sense of all the shapes for myself, but also for Bobby the editor and for Nickelodeon to see as clearly as possible what I'm aiming to do. I'd rather make a change because they didn't like my idea than a change because they didn't understand my idea.

Inks:
Luckily there were no changes requested! I printed out the above digital composite layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of 300 series Strathmore bristol and inked it on a light pad. Here I had to dive into all those details. The wire nuts the grime and corrosion on the pipes, the handles of the tools on the peg board...AND some easter eggs: the Mythbusters sign, a Cats Trio poster, a scissor sheath I made for conventions, a Usagi Yojimbo chop sticker, copies of the art of Mouse Guard, Locke & Key, A Brief History of Time, How Things Work, the Pocket Ref, a book with 'Eastman & Laird', then Adam Savage's custom leatherman holder, and Michelangelo's nunchucks. WHEW!!!


Color Flats:
After the inks were finished and approved, it was time to add color to this compositional detail-mess. The first step of coloring digitally is to lay in flat colors for each area of the piece. Defining that the area of Don's skin is all the same color, which is a different color than his front shell, his pads, or his bandanna...as well as all the other piles of stuff I crammed into this piece. Having these areas be established as flat un-rendered color allows me to quickly isolate those areas as I do the real work in the coloring quickly. Sometimes I flatted in colors for corrosion, like on the pipes...but I didn't on the vice or drawers. That's because I knew I'd have a harder time with the pipes getting that balance just right, so being able to re-isolate them with the flats is prep work that pays off. *note: looks like I didn't save this 'flats' image before I'd already started rendering the milk crates..

Colors:
Here again are the finished colors with all the effects added for the color holds (areas where I wanted the black inkwork to be a color other than black), the glow and lighting effects for the torch and lamp.  This piece was hard, and the most difficult TMNT cover I've ever done...but it was also very personal to me. I recreated everything I loved and remembered about my childhood basement growing up, all the tools, the resourcefulness of using junk cabinets for storage, old doors for table tops, jars for parts, and milk crates for everything.

The Donatello issue of the TMNT Macro Series will be released in September.


2018 Appearances:
Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 28-30
New York Comic Con: Oct. 4-7

TMNT/Usagi Cover Process

Usagi Yojimbo and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are crossing over and teaming up!!! The stand-alone issue is written and drawn by Usagi creator Stan Sakai, and published by IDW.

I was lucky enough to be asked to do a variant cover for the occasion. This marks my 13th TMNT cover and my 4th time drawing Usagi for publication. And when Bobby Curnow (TMNT editor) asked if I could do a cover, I pushed a few days of Mouse Guard work to the side to be a part of this.

In this blogpost I'm going through the process for creating the cover art.


Roughs: 

I don't want to say much about the plot of the issue...but Usagi and the TMNT team up and there is a catfish in the tale too. For the cover, I wanted to show Usagi and the turtles piled in a classic team-up pose with the catfish ethereally looming behind & overhead. For the turtles...I'd done a TMNT rough for a possible licensed print from one of the well-known slikscreen print companies. For various reasons, it didn't come to fruition, but it meant I had a set of Leo, Raph, Mike, & Don unused...

So I set to drawing Usagi first. Then I traced over my old versions of the TMNT to make new tighter pencils of them in an arrangement that would flank Usagi. Doing this allowed me to also make anatomical and detail corrections as well as mirror Donatello & Leonardo.

And then the big old catfish on another sheet of copy paper.

With these sketches/pencils done, I could scan them into Photoshop for....


Layouts:
Now most artists wouldn't go so far as to color-flat the layout that they submit to their editor for approval (and in this case approvals went through Nickelodeon & IDW for TMNT and Stan & Dark Horse for Usagi), but I wanted to make sure the tone and palate as well as the subtle handling of the catfish would be handled.

I had a TMNT title-mastead & IDW logo from my TMNT covers to place as a reference point for what would most likely be covered up for the final publication.


Inks: 
Once the layout was approved by all (no changes, thankfully) I printed out the layout and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol board. On a light pad (I use a Huion brand large enough to fit most of a cover) I was able to see through the bristol to the layout print and then ink on the surface of the bristol without having to transfer the image or have any pencil lines to erase (and ultimately smear the not-quite-dry ink that I all-too-often do). I used Copic Multiliner pens to ink the cover. I tent to use the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs mainly.



Flats:
Once the inks are completed, I scanned them into Photoshop and started flatting in colors...unfortunately it was easier to just re-color this instead of trying to re-register & correct the flats from the layout.

I am a fan of the all-red bandannas from the original Eastman & Laird comics, but to fit in with current IDW continuity, I was told by my editor to give them the multi-color treatment. The other colors were stock from the existing character designs & my original layout. To push back the catfish I added a color hold to it's inkwork as well as all those little dots (meant to give that etherial particles in the air/water catching the light feel).


Here again are the final colors. All of the rendering was done in Photoshop using the Dodge & Burn tools with a textured brush.  This crossover issue will be available to pre-order soon with the book to be released in July.

2017 Appearances: 

C2E2: April 21-23

Heroes Con: Jun. 16-18

San Diego Comic Con: July 19-23

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 22-24

New York Comic Con: Oct. 5-8

Turtles in Time #4 Cover Process

In the final issue of IDW's Turtles in Time series, the four turtles arrive back in Manhattan....but is it the Manhattan they know? This is the near-future...or an alternate near-future. When my editor Bobby Curnow told me the issue would be set in the 'future' my plan was to have the turtles trying to fit in and pilot a small 2 seater flying car amidst odd tech-architecture and holograms. But then I was given more info on the script and what this specific version of the future needed to resemble. To the left you can see the final cover, but below, I'll go through each step of the process and describe how this piece came to be.

My initial rough was to sum up and force in the elements that needed to be there per the script and Bobby's request: All 4 turtles looking a bit baffled, a blend of current and future architecture, mutants milling about the streets, and some kind of billboard or jumbotron of future Shredder. This was a rough sketch done at a friend's house on scrap paper as I tried to describe to the friend how I was going to fit everything in. On a tall-format cover like this, showing the vertical trust of the buildings is easy, but fitting 4 turtles across the width and still having space to show that the crowd isn't human, was the trick.

Once I knew roughly the layout, I needed I started redrawing elements from the original sketch to tighten it up to show Bobby and in turn he could show to Nickelodeon. I drew each of the turtles separately in my sketchbook as well as drawing the background on another sheet of paper. This way I could carefully position & resize each turtle, taking advantage of the negative spaces between their shoulders, pointed arms, etc. to fit in all the info needed for the 4 to be shown while still having enough room to get my foreground and background mutants in there.

As you may notice, the jumbotron Shredder ended up being a photographed model I made. Instead of any of the billboards or the main jumbotron being fixed to anything,  I opted for them all to be free-floating techno-marvels. For the round one (the point of focus), I thought the perspective of not only a circular screen and tech, but also the shredder image mapped on to it would be easier to do with a model. The shredder drawing was scanned, had a grid applied, and then I rolled it up and glued a ticker-tape ring ("MUTANTS SERVE THE LEADER") to it and a spoke & hover-engine design to it.

The above digital composite was printed out and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On top of a lightbox, I inked the image onto the surface of the Strathmore bristol using the printed image I could see through it as a guide. I didn't have the perspective correct for the background in my rough, so I made a correction before committing to ink (though the center area of the furved building to the right still has incorrect vanishing points. The inks were done with Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs mainly).

(As a side note, many of the mutants represent something, characters from other talking animal books, old TMNT RPG characters, and the cat that represented me from my old project Cats Trio.)

The inks were then scanned and I started the coloring process where you establish all the various areas as flat colors with no rendering (and often times not the final colors themselves). After I flatted in the colors on the turtles themselves, I tried to keep the other elements simple, making a 3 tone variation for the buildings and the mutants. Bobby said Nickelodeon was nervous that the turtles might get overshadowed by the foreground characters, so while these were not exactly the final color choices, I did keep in mind that I wanted the turtles to be the most vibrant of the citizens and the others should be kept more muted.

Here is another look at the final cover art with the rendering and the special effects for lighting added.

Other TMNT in Time Cover Process Posts:

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 3

It's been a fun run on TMNT. While I don't have anything else lined up with IDW currently, I do hope to come back and do some more with the TMNT sooner than later.

2014 Appearances:

San Diego Comic Con: July 23-27

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12

Turtles in Time Cover #3 process

In the third issue of IDW's Turtles in Time miniseries, the four brothers find themselves on a pirate ship! When editor Bobby Curnow originally pitched me the 4 issue lineup, the third issue was in a bit of flux for the setting....WWI and the Old West were both tossed around and I had visual ideas for how to handle both,,,(bi-planes and trains!) But when the series solidified, Bobby emailed "PIRATES!". And I was off to doodle and research (even calling on my pal Jeremy Bastian for piratey-tips) for a swashbuckling ninja turtles cover. To the left you can see the finished art, but below I go into the process it took to get there.

Michelangelo has a lead role in this issue and so I started with his design as a captain keeping in mind with Mike's lighthearted attitude. To fit everyone on the cover, I figured I'd have to have someone up on the rigging and some turtles further back. By this point I'd also looked at lots and lots of photos of ship deck photos to find something I thought I could make work. With the angles of the setting in mind, I drew Don on the rigging with a spyglass (using technology of-the-day) and Raph & Leo squabbling and swordfighting further back. These were all sketched on various sheets of copy paper to keep me loose and unattached to any drawing going poorly (there were two that were not working early on that I pitched and moved on)

Those pencil drawn elements were all scanned and then assembled in photoshop to come up with the layout of the cover. At this stage, I made a few adjustments where I'd drawn heads too small, replacement hands to patch in, and swords to angle correctly to avoid bad tangents. The colors were added not just to help me see the drawings better (where one character ended and the next began) but also to show my editor and Nickelodeon as to which turtle is which. This is now my secont TMNT cover where I have shown them all without bandannas or their traditional weapons (though for #2, Leo did have a katana) and I found it fun trying to show some of each turtle's personality in other ways...though their bandanna colors do play a part again later on.

The digital composite, once approved by my editors, was then printed out at roughly 10" x 15" and taped to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 30 series bristol board. I inked with Copic Multiliners on my lightbox. Using a lightbox allows me to see through the surface of the bristol to the printout and use it as a guide instead of pencils on the surface of the bristol. This means less erasing and cleanup when I finish the inks. The stars and moon were inled in black, though I knew I was going to adjust them to be light lines in the color process. While I was inking I realized I'd never drawn pirate garb on Don in my rough, I'd only drawn him in the pose I wanted. So I had to quickly do some last minute design and penciling so I could finish the piece.

To start the color process means that I must establish color areas. It's a way of isolating parts of a drawing as each being different colors than others. This is called flatting (because you aren't rendering or shading, you are just filling in flat colors. I used a lot of high-saturation basic colors to help me see that I was establishing areas that may be next to each other as different colors. Once I got to this stage of the flatting, I desaturated (removed all color information & turned to greyscale) all the layers (other than the sky, ship and moon which I knew I'd gotten close to final colors for. Like issue #2 of this series, I had to incorporate each turtle's bandanna color into their wardrobe to help the readers quickly establish which turtle is which beyond their body language. The final colors can be seen again below.

Other TMNT in Time Cover Process Posts:

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 4

2014 Appearances:

Phoenix Comic Con: June 5-8

Special Edition NYC: June 14-15

Heroes Con: June 20-22

San Diego Comic Con: July 23-27

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12

TMNT 30th Anniversary Tribute

For the 30th Anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, IDW is doing a special 48 page book featuring new stories by past TMNT artists including a new cover by Eastman & Laird! I was asked by editor Bobby Curnow to do a pinup for the book. I've mentioned before what a special and influential part TMNT played in me understanding storytelling, comics, and wanting to be a creator (it also was the link that started my friendship with the real life-Kenzie to my Saxon: Jesse Glenn). To the left you can see the finished piece, but below are the steps of creating it along with some though process as I worked.

The newspaper concept wasn't my first idea. I originally was going to do something with the four turtles each lugging along all their earthly possessions (in an abandoned shopping cart, milk crates, patched duffles, etc,) down a sewer tunnel as just around the corner NYC sewer workers were doing work in that branch of their home. It proved to be something I saw more as a story and had a hard time summing it up in a single image. Instead I focused on just drawing each of the turtles in a cool pose where I might be able to group them together well. As I did that the concept of a newspaper came to me and I drew a 'photo' of Shredder too. Each of these are on separate sheets of copy paper, which give me mental freedom to make a mistake and pitch something that's not working because it's not on 'good' paper or bound in a sketchbook.

I scanned the sketches and composited them in Photoshop into a layout.I asked Bobby if I could use NEW YORK TIMES for the paper, but he advised copying their masthead design could be a legal issue, so I opted to make up my own that felt like the times, but was different. I tried other newspaper names like Sentinel and Journal...but liked Herald best (There was in-fact, a New York Herald which stopped publication in 1924). The type (though much of it is blocked or goes off the edges) was all written like a newspaper article. It was about a crime wave that police had few leads for, but after a botched subway hijacking, police may have found links from "The Foot Clan" to Oroku Saki pinning him as the masked "Shredder" crime boss. The date is an approximation of when Kevin & Pete first created the TMNT (they say it was late Oct. or early Nov.)

I printed the composited layout you see above onto copy paper (it was larger than one sheet so I had to patch it back together with tape) and then taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series Bristol. I had toyed with not inking any of the newspaper elements of then the Shredder 'picture' and just use my digital type and layout to save me time inking, but I tend to find that when you try and blend type and art together that isn't dialogue or a sound effect, it always sticks out like a sore thumb. So tracing over the printout I was able to hand letter the masthead and all the article, giving it a bit of imperfection as I went to replicate printing errors on newsprint. You will also notice I added heap of dead/unconscious foot soldiers around the TMNT. My original plan was to fade the turtles out to white, but opted to give them a more solid base and help sell the story about the Foot Clan crime wave.

As I started the 'coloring' stage, I knew I wanted to do something special for this piece celebrating the origins of the TMNT. Back when I discovered the turtles, they all wore red masks, and with Eastman and Laird being heavily influenced by Frank Miller's Ronin, I thought it would be fun to carry that over to spot color accents like in Sin City. The masthead got a bit of red too for balance. For the rest of the cover, I wanted everything to be in greyscale. The newspaper text & Shredder photo I made all grey to help push it back behind the turtles. After a bit of rendering and then applying a faux-halftone screen (to pay homage to the old duo-tone pages from the original TMNT run) the final piece was done and can be seen again below:

2014 Appearances:

Comicpalooza: May 23-25

Phoenix Comic Con: June 5-8

Special Edition NYC: June 14-15

Heroes Con: June 20-22

San Diego Comic Con: July 23-27

Boston Comic Con: August 8-10

Baltimore Comic Con: Sept. 5-7

NY Comic Con: Oct. 9-12