You know it was bound to happen! For those who don't know, a few weeks back, TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman released some original concept sketches he drew some time in the 90's, for auction. These sketches were for a proposed fourth live-action TMNT film. The film was rumored to be darker, edgier and quite a departure from what we saw on screen up until that point. Unfortunately, (or fortunately for some TMNT purists) that movie never made it past concept/pre-production stages. Kirby (no doubt named after comics legend Jack Kirby) was one of the new characters to be introduced in the proposed film. Not much known about the character, but from the visuals, I KNEW I had to bring the guy to "life"!

The figures used in this piece combine a little old school and new. 2012 Raphael provides most of the body, while I used a vintage TMNT Slash for the shell, tail (in the concept art, Eastman has Kirby with spiky shell and with a tail) and chest. I also used two vintage TMNT Slash knives (hard to track down on eBay separately) and gave him a manhole cover shield just for the heck of it. The cape is from a Spawn Redeemer figure, modded to fit Kirby. I damaged the belt in removing it, so I had to sculpt him a new one, and in the end prefer it over the original. I also sculpted leg and arm details.

Because in each of the concept sketches, Kirby looks a bit different, I decided to take characteristics I liked from each sketch (and took some creative license) and made a composite of those. One tough decision was the color of his mask. The concept sketches show him with black and one with purple. Ultimately, I went with black. I preferred him looking a bit like Slash than looking like an insane Donatello, heh.

Thanks for checking out my work!