Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Style Guide Art

Four pages from an old Mirage Studios style guide we came across. Hope to find the rest!





23 comments:

Aaron Hazouri said...

This stuff is fantastic! The lines are so clean and the posing is so strong! Plus the designs are so wacky... I miss that from the new line! I bet kids today miss it, too, and don't even realize it!

Lord Nightwalker said...

So who whipped these sketches up?
It's nice work.

Roseangelo said...

These are fantastic! I LOVE style guide art! And I soooo recognize that Michaelangelo - I bought LOTS of "Turtle Tarts" that had that drawing on them!

Adam said...

AMAZING! Would love to see the rest so keep looking!

Chuck Dillon said...

When I was very young my mother gave me a style guide from Warner Brothers for the Looney Toons Characters. She used to work at some kind of a shoe manufacturer in Philadelphia so I guess she got it there. I used to copy everything in that thing. I wonder if it's still around? Now I have to go back home and find it!

~ tOkKa said...

-->> .. the art is ' older ' .. circa between like 1991 - 1993,

but is there a reason it's incorporating the more contemporary ' Mirage Licensing ' logo ??

did you just add that to these pieces ??

>v<

Roseangelo said...

That logo's actually been around for a long while. It just hasn't really been used anywhere the consumer would see it until they started putting it on the comics and at the end of the cartoon credits. I have an old letter from Molly that has it on the letterhead.

~ tOkKa said...

-->> ..no those are actual pages, fairly non- digital ..

so i can assume correctly ( i think ) the art originates from the early 1990s.. .. but this style guide has got to be from the late 90s in the very least.

Mirage didn't incorporate that logo til' about 1998 or 99 or so.

Very interesting.

>v<

Roseangelo said...

Nope, they had it earlier than that. Like I said, I have a letter from Molly with it. That's from 1996-ish.

~ tOkKa said...

-->> i believe you, Rose..

But i would like to know a year.

It really isn't a big i guess.

Characters and creators are one thing.

A sad thing with logogs tho' ..

not once

EVER

EVER has anyone never ever .. ( with the exception of the original ' Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' logo ) been able to give me a straight answer about who designed a specific logo.

The creators.. of whether it was the original Toon logo, the newer 2k3 one ,or the ' Next Mutation ' mark ( tho' i assume it was created by Craig Farley ) .. they have become phantoms.

Noone can tell me who created this ' Mirage Licensing' logo.. or the old ' Mirage Publishing ' Pizza-Shell' logo.

So .. i have become a little obsessed.

.. ..

That logo was not used widely at least until about approximately the time Mark Freedman dropped off the TMNT bandwagon and Mirage took the licensing into it's own hands.

nut i believe you.. it's prolly been around much, much longer than i am aware. You got the proof so !!


God i get so confused !!

>v<

~ tOkKa said...

-->> Nope , ' WHAT ' ??

Roseangelo said...

That's a good question about who designed all the logos - I don't think I've ever thought about that!

~ tOkKa said...

-->> O ' NOPE ' .. we were commenting at the same time.

i see..



**

Yeh it's been driving me nuts for years , Rose.

>v<

~ tOkKa said...

-->> ..Rose, gonna mark these at about 1991- 1993 as far as art goes..

but like mark them @ 1991 - 1996 as far as the source material itself.

your guesstimations are usually more accurate than mine so.

>v<

~ tOkKa said...

-->> .. well i had 'em marked at 1999 but well .. i don't think that's accurate. No that's not right.

So hard to figure this sh6t out sometimes !!

D:<

O god i dunno ..i'm so easily mixed up and distracted ya know.. like there was that one time i wa-


0_< ** ~~~

O IS THAT OWEN THE BUNNY , AGAIN IN THAT LITTLE AV OF ROSIE'S ?!




.. ooOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooo



*o*


..

OO OO whaddah fuzzy wuzzy ..


heesha fuzzy wuzzi poopie kinzzzzz..


aaa shhuwuzzuh wuzzuh ~~!!~~


Widdul beddy bunneeeeeeeeeaaaaaa ..
ahshuhh wuzzuh aaahhhh !!~~ ~~ **


^o^

Roseangelo said...

I'd guess 1993-ish due to the 3rd movie costume.

Yes, Owen has taken over the majority of my Internet avatars. ^_^

Steve Lavigne Ryan Brown said...

Hey tokka, Tim Toffoli created the red turtle head design.

Steve Lavigne Ryan Brown said...

Hey Rose,

Join F O N !!


...Free Owen Now!

Get him outta that cage, bunnies must frolic freely!!

Roseangelo said...

LOL! I wouldn't worry too much about Owen; he gets plenty of time out of his cage where he runs around the apartment. He'd be allowed even more time if he'd stop eating my books and action figures and other various things. ;p

Steve Lavigne Ryan Brown said...

Okay then. It's just that he looks so sad behind those cold steel bars in the picture!

Roseangelo said...

Heehee. Well, there was a nearly 3 month struggle to get him to eat hay, 'cause he was absolutely and completely refusing it. That pic is from the night he FINALLY took to eating it, so I think he's happy there. He eats the stuff in huge quantities now with no reservation. (Whew!)

~ tOkKa said...

-->> ..

Tim Toffoli


YOU ROCK,

WHEREVER YOU ARE !! !!

The Barker said...

These toys were the most fun I had with toys as a kid, I loved the crazy animal mutants that populated the Turtles world and especially in the fantastic Archie comics. Thanks so much for posting!