Geek Creek TMNT Kitbashes and Photos

[Monte Williams]

[Monte Williams]

Some tentative Figuarts shots (weather has been interfering, so I still haven't had a proper shoot with them):

Meanwhile, save me from myself (Post-Its mark the scale of the van)!

Finally, a real treat. Sculptor Eddy Mosqueda shared with me his turnarounds from the Undercover Donatello. So beautiful!

[Monte Williams]

[Monte Williams]

Don, I Wish You'd Choose a More Menacing Pose by Monte Williams

[Monte Williams]

This here is a weird "custom", even by my generous standards.

First off, here are some shots of the vintage Scratch figure for anyone for whom the character is unfamiliar (he was after my time):

I found a cat skull in the Snake River Canyon a couple years ago, and on occasion I will utilize it as a background prop in a toy photo.

More recently, I got to studying it and decided it's roughly to scale with NECA's quarter-scale Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and my awesome niece Kristen was kind enough to sew a wee prison hat for him.

I tried adding his black mask, but setting aside my ineptitude with scissors, the mask simply obscured the skull too much.

I also scored a miniature Etch-a-Sketch at a yard sale this morning. It doesn't work, but for twenty-five cents, I'm not complaining.

[Monte Williams]

Two years ago, I moved from Idaho to California. I wanted to seriously downsize my toy collection rather than haul it across two states, so I sold my quarter-scale NECA turtles; I never got around to getting Mikey.

After that, it seemed like a good time to take an extended break from ninja turtles.

In the time since, Flickr has ransomed its users: either pay $50 a month, or all but 1,000 of your photos will be deleted. $50 isn't much to ask, but since they said for years that they were giving us free unlimited storage, I decided I couldn't trust them anymore, so I went through my photostream and deleted 2,000 photos myself. It was painful, but I figured this way I could at least try to keep most of my best and favorite photos.

The point? This thread is now missing probably a hundred or more photos. I have gone through and deleted the dead links and cleaned up the text that referred to them, so it shouldn't be too jarring. (As if anyone is making their way through all ten pages of this nonsense after all this time, ha ha. I guess I did it for myself, more than anything.)

I still miss Flickr, and I still don't really care for Instagram, but I am sure glad it's there, and in the meantime, Astra hipped me to the PostImage site, so I can share photos in forums again.

Meanwhile, the smaller-scale NECA Henson Turtles were reigniting my turtle fandom, and I wanted them somethin' fierce, but I had resigned myself to never owning them due to the crazy prices on the secondary market... but my generous friend Valerobots sold me a set at cost!

(I was also lucky enough to find all the NECA toon turtle sets at Target, but I only kept those for about a week.)

And so, (typically) long story short: I have some new TMNT toy photos to share in this thread for the first time in two years!

The clarity isn't as good as Flickr, but I am grateful nonetheless.

Meanwhile, Mikey is my least favorite of the four figures by quite a wide margin; they went a little too Cowabunga Carl on his expression. He suffers the most from the lack of alternate sculpts. I for one would like a more serious or neutral option for him.

Donatello is my favorite of the four, but man, Raph might be the best; he looks ridiculously realistic.


Anyhoo, it feels good to post in this ridiculous thread after so long, and it's been a hoot to constantly have turtles on the brain again!

[connor_obain]

Despite the whole Flickr thing its good to see you back at it. Your photos have always been top notch and hopefully it wont be another 2 years before we see more of them.

[Monte Williams]

Thank you, sir!

[TheCanadiandrome]

still love your work bro

[Huzzah]

I'll have to disagree with you on the Mikey headsculpt, I think it's my favorite if the bunch.

[Monte Williams]

Belated thanks, TheCanadiandrome!

Originally Posted by Huzzah

I'll have to disagree with you on the Mikey headsculpt, I think it's my favorite if the bunch.

Fair enough!

I just don't care for the fact that the only option we have for him is a goofy expression. I feel like he wasn't as zany in this movie, and they're catering to the toon take on the character. I would prefer a more neutral expression.

Also, the orange on the bandana can be a bit problematic.

[Monte Williams]

I spent $40 on a stupid skateboard accessory, but no regrets!

It's Michelangelo's motorized skateboard (clearly meant to emulate the vintage Chespskate toy) from the sixth-scale DreamEx figure. I think the "TMNT" branding on it is stupid, but I doubt I'll repaint it.

Additional recent shots:

[Monte Williams]

Got a few things to share from the past month or three.

First off, I went ahead and nabbed the ThreeZero Donatello. The two recent live-action movies don't do much for me, but I always liked the design for Donnie, even though it's hacky and on-the-nose.

I traded him to a friend shortly afterward; I just wanted to photograph him once or twice.

Next, I got the NECA Robocop vs. Terminator set just for the robot dog, so's Donatello could have a pet:

I want to get a wolf for Leo and a chihuahua for Mikey, but I doubt I'll ever get around to it.

A friend gave me the Marvel Legends Korg, so I repurchased McFarlane's Total Chaos Quartz and paired them up to serve as Tragg and Granitor:

They don't scale as well with the NECA movie figures as I'd like, but I still like how they look together.

This is the third time I've owned Quartz, and I also just bought McFarlane's Heap for the second time, once again to use as Muckman:

[TheCanadiandrome]

wow dude master pieces

[connor_obain]

Always love your use of non tmnt characters as existing characters

[Monte Williams]

Thanks, guys!

[DarkFell]

Thanks for sharing your ideas and imagination. Keep taking more pictures!

[PizzaPower1985]

@ Monte... These are excellent customs. I like the darker paint schemes on the boys to make them a little more mature looking. The van is amazing. Looks like it's straight out of Mirage almost.

Very well done on all the figures.

[Monte Williams]

Originally Posted by DarkFell

Thanks for sharing your ideas and imagination. Keep taking more pictures!

Will do, and thank you for the encouragement!

Originally Posted by PizzaPower1985

@ Monte... These are excellent customs. I like the darker paint schemes on the boys to make them a little more mature looking. The van is amazing. Looks like it's straight out of Mirage almost.

Very well done on all the figures.

Thank you very much! Heymilt did a bang-up job painting those Nick figures.


Now then, I've got a new lazy kitbash to share, as well as two new examples of "found art" customs, meaning toys whose only detail I changed is their name!

First off, since NECA's 1990 Hensonverse Shredder and Foot Soldier share a body, I thought it might be cool to do a quick swap and see how Oroku Saki looks clad in black:

I've got a couple more story and photo ideas in mind for that Foot Soldier figure, but I haven't gotten around to them yet.

Next up, an old McFarlane Toys Movie Maniacs figure that I've wanted to use in a TMNT context for well over a decade: Brundlefly, or as I call him, Baxter Stockman!

And Baxter has developed some new tech for Shredder in the form of a better mousetrap. Here's NECA's Robocop ED-209, which I'm utilizing as a giant Mouser!

This is the first time I had ever felt compelled to use Shredder's cape; NECA did a great job on it, but it's a bit much. I find that it works better on a black backdrop rather than the glittery red suit (which I love, but again, it's all a bit much.)

Thanks for checking out the latest geekery, folks!

[TheCanadiandrome]

wow dude awesome stuff, Shredder looks amazing