TMNT Animation Diary 01 - Humble Beginnings

I figured I would start a series detailing the journey of my biggest project to date, to show off some behind the scenes material and also give some insight into the work that has been done so far.

The idea for this project is one that I have had for a very long time. I've been a huge fan of the ninja turtles and I always wanted to draw them in some greater context. For the longest time I struggled with their facial shape and the amount of work involved to feature at least four characters at a time, because I didn't want to settle for anything less. This culminated in a short three page comic that I released in 2021, titled "Crossover Episode":

At the time, I had considered continuing to add more pages, but realized that it would just be too much work. However the idea stuck with me for a while and I had fully intended to go back and expand on it. I had even written out a script for it in April 2023. I was contemplating remaking the whole thing and giving it more context, but settled on just continuing it. The project seemed like it would remain a pipe dream however as I needed to focus on prioritizing commissions and earning money.

With me dipping my toes into 3D content creation last year and expanding on that throughout the recent months, I realized that trying and turning this whole idea into a 3D animation would actually be an achievable goal. It indeed would feel like "less" work to make all the models from scratch and animate them, than to draw them in a comic.

It might seem ridiculous if you think about it, but the truth is that the workflow for 3D animation is a lot more free form than for 2D art. Drawing something is always a linear process and so is animating in 2D. You need to plan ahead and know exactly what you want to do because the more work you put in, the harder it becomes to change course. With 3D, all the prep work is in the beginning, but as soon as you have that done, your workflow becomes a lot more open. You can always go back and change things, change animations, models, lighting, etc. So it felt like I needed to grasp that opportunity.

At first I started out writing a script, this time with full intention to include everything I wanted. The opening espcially mattered to me as I wanted it to genuinely feel like an episode from the 2003 ninja turtles series:

After I had finished the script, I started drawing references for each character to use as a basis for the 3D models:

The Turtles

Master Splinter

Bebop :

Rocksteady: 

With Bebop and Rocksteady I sorta had to improvise, as they didn't appear in the 2003 cartoon series and while there was some fanart of how they would look like in the style, I rather decided to go with my own art style as opposed to try and copy someone elses.

Once the foundation for this was laid, my original plan was to get started on making the models. However, I decided to go into a different direction. I know my fickle nature when it comes to motivation, so I really didn't want to risk this project falling to the wayside again, especially being faced with the task of creating seven different characters from scratch.

So I instead opted to do a casting call for the voice actors first. I was sick at the time, which meant I couldn't really work on anything, so the timing was perfect. It was such an exciting endeavor, seeing so many talented people try out for the various roles. After I had locked in all the voice actors and they had started recording their lines, I felt a huge rush of inspiration, knowing that this project was really starting to take shape now.

Doing the recording sessions with the voice actors was so incredibly fun and it led to me working on a dedicated storyboard for the opening. I hastily drew sketches for each scene to illustrate what was going on and add the recorded lines to it. You can watch the result HERE.

It was really cool seeing this come to life in such an early version. My favorite scenes are these:

These four illustrations of Night interacting with the turtles are actually based on a picture idea, that I wanted to commission for a long time, as I didn't think I could draw them myself in the same way I envisioned them in my head. So being able to include them in the animation was another dream come true.

After the storyboard was completed, I got really busy working on each individual model:

Without going into too much detail, but the way I made these models in Blender was mainly by using an existing base model (that I originally created for Tony the tiger last year) and then sculpting them out of that. The advantage being that I can create a character model in relatively short amount of time instead of making it from scratch.

Once the basic models were done, I started adding clothes and refining them. At this time I also learned about shaders to give them the typical cartoon look and emulate the style of the series:

Going for the cartoon look was a huge blessing, because it meant that the texturing and lighting would be very simple and not take up much time. It will also make things easier while animating, as 2D animations are much less dynamic, in terms of camera movement and such.

The next step on this journey will be to add the genitals and then the rigging process, where I create bone systems to actually make the characters able to walk, talk and be animated. Once that is done, the animation process will begin.

This is the work I have done so far these last two months. I'm really excited and happy how this project is progressing and I can't wait to show off more content in the future!

For those of you, who are now interested in learning Blender yourself, I would strongly suggest you try it! Blender is free after all and there are tons of great tutorials out there. The ones I used are this: How to make a 3D VTuber Avatar from scratch by Mako Ray in tandem with Modeling for Animation by Dikko. These two have been my primary resources for learning Blender. Dikko especially has a ton of great content on his channel, from modeling to rigging, he explains it all very well and his content is entertaining to watch.

That's it from me for now. I'll keep you updated as soon as I have more progress to share!