Pupils or no pupils?
 

As the titles says.

I personally go for no pupils.

Bonus question: What if the OT and 2012 TMNT had no pupils? I know the 2012 series does it at times in combat but I mean as a permanent thing.

This is not a two choice question, really. I doubt there's anyone who'll always want one or the other. Whether or not they suit a certain version of the turtles depends on far too many factors to list. Needs a both/depends option.

I lean towards no pupils, mainly because of the old action figures which had such an effect on me (:tgrumble:)

I'm with Powder....it really depends. Some artists renditions of the Turtles even are more suited for pupils than others. When Chris Allan drew his issues of Tales of the TMNT Vol 2, they looked odd because his style lends itself to the pupils.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UAtNGSNO-V...600/nagi01.jpg
Same can be said for FW styled Turtles with no pupils:

When you put it like that...

The no pupils thing has always rang as stupid to me. Of course they should have pupils. Drawing them without them always just rang as an artistic sort of, "Look how cool they look with no pupils!" thing. But it's nonsense... they're not Batman, they're not wearing infrared contact lenses or anything.

Equally stupid is giving each Turtle exotically and unique colored pupils. Which seems to be the new thing to do.

Both. 2k12.

But if I have to choose..

I'd choose no pupil since it looks cool and how they started in mirage.

I like both to be honest. In battle, they look awesome without pupils but everything else doesn't look good with whited out eyes especially during down time. So if I have to choose, I say without pupils. I really like it the way the Turtles have normal eyes when they're calm but once their adrenaline is pumping, their eyes white out.

I love the no pupils. But I agree, in the OT they got to have pupils.

I don't really care either way but if I had to choose I'd say pupils look aesthetically better.

Jester: I have that shirt, I wear it to the gym a lot. :lol:

I agree with Andrew that they should have pupils, generally speaking, for the same reasons: When Batman or most masked characters have no pupils, it's usually a function of the mask itself. The mask magically making their pupils vanish, or further showing them unmasked and still having no pupils, seems very odd. It just looks weird.

I disagree about eye colors, though, to me it's just another distinguishing trait between them and not that big a deal. Might not be "realistic", but literally nothing about TMNT on any level is realistic to begin with.

I can deal either way, though, I got over them not having pupils in the 2K3 series. I always draw them with pupils, though.

I prefer pupils personally, but I like how 2K12 does both.

I like how Nick does pupils and no pupils when they're in battle. It's just so cool. Frankly, I never cared about it before and it really doesn't matter to me what they do. But I do like the pupils for the Nick Turtles and having them be different colors is just so cool.

The question is really a broad option. You can't really choose pupils or non pupils.

Some turtles look good with pupils, thus looking weird without pupils. Incarnations such as the movie turtles and the 1987 turtles look weird or just plain wrong without pupils.

On the other hand, some turtles look good without pupils. The mirage turtles and the 2003 turtles look better without pupils, and look really weird with pupils.

So, overall you can't really choose which, because it all comes down to which incarnation.

A better question would be 'Do the 2012 Turtles look better with or without pupils?', as we have seen both of them with and without pupils.

Well, I prefer without, since that's how Mirage did it. The thing I have to mention though is that when they took off the bandannas, they had pupils. I always liked that take on it. So with me, when the mask is on, none but when they're off, which I would like to see more of, yeah, show the eyes.

But why would their pupils vanish just because they tie a strip of cloth around their head, though? That's what I don't get. At least with Batman, they realized after a few years how silly it was for his eyes to vanish and decided "Oh, yeah, uh, night vision lenses in the mask". It was still flimsy but at least it sort of made sense. I doubt the TMNT have high-tech filter lenses woven into their tattered headband rags. :lol:

(Cue someone saying that Donatello did exactly that as a way of explanation)

Yeah, I felt the same way, but I do like how they go all white in battle mode in the Nick cartoon as it just looks damn awesome.

And who knows? Maybe Don could rig something like that up.

I'm actually ok with it for dramatic effect like on the Nick show, they do lots of things like that so it fits in just fine there.

I prefer without pupils since that's how it originally was. The turtles look weird with the 2k3 Back to the Sewers season. There are times where they can pull them off well (2k12 series) but to me, it's like seeing Batman with pupils....awkward.

It's just a lense that covers the eye-holes of the mask. ;) At least that's how I took it. I understand what you're saying. I usually don't like it, using your example for instance, I much prefer Batman with his actual eyes. I'm a huge Green Arrow fan and as much as I like his Neal Adams look, I liked the Mike Grell painted eyes much better. Just when it comes to the Turtles, I think it looks much cooler, even if it makes no sense.

I vote for pupils. You can convey so much emotion through the eyes and if you have no pupils they tend to look soulless which we know the TMNT are not.

I would reserve this for characters that are possessed, blind, zombie-like or pure evil.

I'm not trying to plug my own work but here's an example of what you can get with pupils.
http://th06.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/...es-d6qqqta.jpg

I guess it depends.....but I'm leaning toward pupils XD

eyes just help convey their emotions~ :3
especially in the 2012 cartoon :D

edit: just noticed Sabacooza said what I was trying to say XD

I like how in Batman movies we're supposed to just pretend we don't notice he's wearing eye-shadow while in costume, and it mysteriously vanishes immediately when he takes his mask off like "Returns" and "Begins". :lol: You'd think by now they'd figure out a mask that was practical and actually looked right on-screen; it kind of breaks the suspension of disbelief whenever they do a close-up and he's clearly wearing paint around his eyes, y'know? :lol:

It really depends.

For me it entirely depends on the medium.
Comics and cartoons I much prefer no pupils unless unmasked but on film and CGI then pupils are a must. I found the Nick tmnt having pupils then not during battle kinda cool, it's like a white hot fury descending, lol.
As for the pupil-less look I always assumed it was the distinction between being an alert, focused ninja ready for to put aside their 'human' ways vs. when the masks were off and they were enjoying downtime, pupils = connection to human traits, wants and needs. At least that's the way I saw it in the comics.

If I had to absolutely choose one over the other, I'd go with pupils. I like the way iris's can be changed in size and color to reflect personality (one of the few times I'm alright with a physical trait reflecting personal characteristics) and mood, and overall it makes the face that much more expressive. I never really liked how the 2k3 turtles didn't have pupils until the end of the series (unless they took their masks off), and I found them much more appealing once the style was changed.

Overall though, I like the way Nick handles the issue with giving them pupils 99% of the time, while going for the all white in 'battle mode' and whatnot. It makes the all white more striking, while still giving the turtles a little more 'life'.

The pupils shall die!!!!:shredder:

Preferably no pupils

Pupils, definitely! As others have said, they are so much more expressive, and give a more "human" look to them that I like. Not to say they should look human, but it is just more relatable and gives an emotional depth and impact that the whited-out look just can't achieve. And as newer versions have shown, it allows for more individuality between them with different eye-colors, too!

I don't mind it either way really, but I do agree with the other dromers here - it's nice that the new show gives us both.

But yeah, no pupils makes zero sense logically even on Batman but that doesn't mean it doesn't look cool.

I agree with these two opinions here, having no pupils just doesn't make logical sense and is very tricky from an artistic perspective (unless you are trying to convey some type of soulless, blind, or possessed individual.) The pupils express a lot more emotion than what some people give credit for, and is taken for granted since reading them is so second nature to us, where it can immediately relay or hint at what emotion is being expressed. There have been numerous articles about it, and can be found with a simple Google search here, if anyone is interested. The no pupil effect at times can come across as a superficial attempt to "bad ass" the Turtles when it actually makes them look vapid, rather than showing the pupils having a soulful, fiery determination from within.

I guess like the saying goes, "Eyes are the window to the soul."

Well it's interesting you bring up the vapid aspect of artists attempting to make their characters look more "bad ass." The first issue of TMNT definitely is a product of its time - it was after all a lighthearted homage/jab at the then running series of Daredevil by Frank Miller who was (and still is but worse) a hyperbole of violence and everything that can be described as "bad ass." Adding the pupils for the cartoon definitely made the characters appear friendlier for a wider (see: child demographic) audience. Seeing what's been done with the license over the years and the addition/retraction of the pupils has definitely just been left to the artists - or peer group sessions - depending on their intentions. So, I guess my question is, how has the addition of pupils changed the intention of the turtles from version to version, if at all?

I'm not even trying to compare versions of the Turtles (but I guess its coming across that way :ohwell:), but just more from an individual scene perspective of an emotional art style. It was why I was saying its "very tricky" and "at times" the effect can make the characters appear more vapid. For me, and my taste of art, I'm a stickler for detail, and not having pupils blunts the emotional depth of the scene significantly.

With humans being such visual creatures, and observing facial cues from others (body language), it can help the viewer to understand the magnitude of a character's emotion: nervousness or anxiety (pupils darting around), fascination or fear (larger pupils), burning rage (fixated pupils), guilt or sadness (looking downward), suspicion of the environment (pupils at the corner of the eyes), lying (if the pupils don't follow the spoken or acted-out mechanical body movement of emotion), etc.
So with these two variables: the movement of the pupils, and the size of the pupils, for me, it gives more validation on what the character is truly experiencing.

For me, seeing the Turtles having a piercing, fixated, burning glare with their pupils into an enemy, amplifies the emotion and seriousness rather than having a "blank white sclera" and using the Turtles' eyebrows and gritting teeth/tense jaw as the only facial cues in recognizing their anger. Having the "blank white sclera" eyes is emotionless to me (and some may consider that "bad ass" because the character is emotionally "immune" from the fight), but I have to say there's no denying how powerful, pupils can express a character's passionate fury in an explosive fight.

Good points. I guess I just don't really think about it in those terms. For me, it's purely an aesthetic difference. Sometimes having pupils works, sometimes it doesn't.

Totally agree with this, a darker gritty version of the turtles would be better off with no pupils I think, but a lighter hearted version would be suited to having pupils.

You can say that for a lot of the super hero films. Call me crazy but I prefer their costumes actually be functional. It takes 3 people to get Chris Evans in his Captain America costume, why not make something he can get in in a hurry, like a superhero does, lol. Batman with no neck motion blows my mind as well but Keaton did at least look cool.