My column over at Monster Popcorn updated today with some of my memories and thoughts on the live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. To say that I loved the Turtles as a child would be a tremendous understatement. Aside from owning every single Turtles toy Playmates put out, my brother and I would role-play as the Ninja Turtles everyday with the neighborhood kids using our own homemade ninja weapons. The first thing I remember seriously trying to learn how to draw was a Ninja Turtle. I would sit at our kitchen table and try over and over again to draw Raphael (my favorite Turtle, BTW), working at it tirelessly until I could draw him without a second thought. I drew the same image of a Ninja Turtle so many times I can still see it in my head over 20 years later. Every time I’ve redrawn a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle as an adult those awesome childhood memories have come flooding back. This week I drew Raphael as he appeared in one of my favorite scenes in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In this scene Raphael leaves his family behind to go see a movie disguised in a trench coat and hat. I really like the juxtaposition of a mutated, ninja turtle going about his business alongside everyone else, and knew right away it was the image I wanted to draw. The illustration only took two or so hours from pencils to finished colors, but I had to go a little further with it by quickly adding in a background and a word balloon. I’m sorry to say the perspective is pretty far off in the finished panel, but in my defense it was really early in the morning when I was drawing it. I really enjoyed drawing this guy, and will have to make another excuse soon to draw a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Check out my column on the movie here, and if you haven’t seen it in a while, I highly recommend you go back and rewatch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ’cause it’s pretty awesome.