Bandana consistency
 

I've been working on a collection of Mirage-based TMNT sprites (see prototype in my avatar), and I was wondering... is there some set rule to the bandana length? In the earlier books, it looks like the norm are short bandana "tails" (for lack of a better term off the top of my head), but there seem to be a couple random issues where the "tails" are long. The newer issues seem to portray the opposite, even in stories taking place during the "short tail" period.

Is it all just a preference of the artist or the artist's mood? Or is there some set pattern I'm not seeing?

I think it depends on the artist's whim. I don't even know at which age they stopped wearing their full masks and started wearing the eye masks.

The only case where their lengths of the eye masks got longer after a certain point would be in the Red Sky episodes of the Old Toon.

I think they stopped wearing the full masks at age 13, since the full eye masks have always been used to designate pre-teen and younger turtles. It's kinda like Zorro in a way - does he wear a full mask under that hat (like Duncan Regher) or just an eye mask ( like Guy Williams). As for the length, it really just depends on the artist I think, but as to when the change first happened from short to long I thing it was in issue 11 of Vol. 1 but I'm not totally sure.