Author: Stephan

A.C. Farley’s First Turtle

Craig Farley has recently been releasing a lot of art and sketches from his archives. While I have decided not to post about every singlething he shows, I will be posting about the stuff that is historically significant. I’ll let A.C. tell the story himself:

This is the very first Ninja Turtle drawing I ever did. It says 1988 on it. It was an advertisement for the Mirage artists visit to the comic shop, ‘Altered Earth Arts’, that I owned and operated at the time. That comic shop is where I first met Peter Laird. He used to come in there now and then. I didn’t know him or recognize him at all for a long time. One day he asked if I’d like them to come to my store for a signing. Of course I did. The store got mobbed. Later Pete asked if I would want to do a TMNT comic. Of course I did. I don’t have the original of this drawing. I think Pete asked for it back then and I gave it to him. I don’t have the comic store any longer, either.

Jimagination – A promotional video by A.C. Farley

Today, Craig Farley shared a video via his facebook page.

Jimagination (1999) I made this movie for Jim Lawson and Pete Laird to potentially use on a loop at cons or online to promote their Planet Racers comic. They never did use this.

At the time, I was making 3D models of some the Planet Racers bikes and robots for Pete and so it seemed natural to animate them somehow and I w…anted to try out a lot of the stuff I was learning about video editing and compositing 3D models using multilayer workflow. Which means rendering the 3D in separate passes for the lights, reflections and shadows etc., just like the big movie studios do it. I was very precise and measured that hallway and built a 3D model to match it, with lights and all, so that I could ‘catch’ shadows and reflections of the robot in the 3D app and composite them into the live action video.

I also felt that it would be a cool memory of the artist’s studio area at Mirage. Looking at this now, I think I was right about that. That whistling in the movie is what one hears when Jim Lawson is happy and drawing and the radio in the background is stuff Jim used to listen to at work.

Jim told me that when his kids saw this, they were a bit alarmed that the robot was sneaking up on him.

Note: When you’re looking down the hallway… that’s my door, first on the right. Seen in this movie: Jim Lawson, Michael Dooney and Eric Talbot and Lone Wolf Robot.

Playmates Toys is on the Move!

Our good friend Vaughn Michael found this little tidbit of information on the interwebs:

Playmates Toys is moving its US offices to Los Angeles from Costa Mesa, CA and expects to be settled into their new home by April 1st 2010. This move is on the heels of a restructuring of the U.S. organization in an effort to reduce overhead and focus all our resources on strategic partnerships and key long term brands such as Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & iCarly, Michael Jackson, Hero:108, DreamWorks’ Shrek and Rainbow Brite. “We are very optimistic that our changes will have a positive effect on our business and are thrilled to be moving to contemporary new offices in El Segundo hoping to attract new talent from all over the LA area.” said Lou Novak, President, Playmates Toys.

Original Source: http://toynewsi.com/news.php?catid=216&itemid=15579

Rumor had been circulating earlier in the month that Playmates had recently laid off up to 50% of their production staff. This certainly seems to be in line with those rumors.

Leonardo on Recycled Paper Bag

Brodie of The Technodrome shared this sketch of Leonardo he did on recycled material. I liked it so much I couldn’t not put it up. You can see more of Brodie’s work on his blog!

Prayers for Jake

As most of you know, our friend and Tales writer, Jake Black, is a cancer survivor. Jake spent the better part of last year fighting the crap off, and has since been in remission.

Via his facebook page this morning, Jake shared this news:

Ok, here’s the deal: Was on the phone with my oncologist for an hour last night b/c I’ve been having some worrisome symptoms-night sweats, extreme fatigue, itchy skin, a little weight loss. Dr. is “concerned” and has ordered some blood work today and a PET Scan next week. He and I will meet a week from today to discuss results from the scan. It’s possible it’s not a recurrence, but these symptoms are not a good sign.

We will update you as we know more. In the mean time, positive thoughts please.