StarWarsxTMNT (semi-official) customs

[oldmanwinters]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFwqiL8AqMW/


Cool find today of custom figures which had a semi-official pedigree behind them. Vintage toy collector and author Matt George teamed up with Scott Hensey of Anaglyph studios (which sculpted many of the classic TMNT figures for Playmates back in the day), to bring Michael Dooney's concept artwork for an unproduced TMNT-Star Wars mash-up toy line!

Shredder as Darth Vader and Krang in an AT-ST walker are the first of what may become a series!

Eventually, they hope to produce custom figures for all 10 figures inspired by the Dooney concepts, which might include Leonardo/Luke Skywalker, April/Leia, Michelangelo/Chewbacca, Donatello/C-3PO, Yoda, R2-D2, and probably some others.

Images courtesy of cfawcett, check out his upcoming Prototype Book!

Spoiler:

From @geeks_antiques:

In the early 90s, Kenner/Hasbro inexplicably let the Star Wars action figure license lapse. Lucasfilm was relieved, since the original agreement was not particularly financially beneficial to them. As a result, they opened up the bidding to all the major toy manufacturers, who each made their respective pitches.

Playmates Toys was one of the new suitors. They were riding the crest of the wave of popularity of their #teenagemutantninjaturtles line of #actionfigures and naturally wanted to make a tie-in with #StarWars a part of their pitch to Lucas and company.

They commissioned the legendary @michaeldooneyart to create some concept art that fused the two worlds together. Unfortunately these works were never translated into three dimensional prototypes, and instead his 2D work was presented in the meeting. Playmates eventually lost out to #Kenner / #Hasbro and these concepts were abandoned.

Several years back, some friends and I stumbled across color copies of these Dooney pieces and were taken aback by how great these would have been as toys. After all, we were Star Wars fans first and foremost but had a new appreciation for the #TMNT line.

It had always stuck in the back of my mind to one day get these Dooney pieces turned into actual #toys. One of the people I follow on Instagram is the incomparable Scott Hensey, and in his feed one day was a custom character from the TMNT universe that never made it to toy-form. So I reached out to him with the idea of recreating the Lucasfilm/Playmates line and he was interested in the idea.

For those that don’t know, @scottthensey was one of the original sculptors on the TMNT line, and he and his studio (Anaglyph) were responsible for sculpting some of the more iconic characters in the line. Examples of their work include the original #Shredder #Bebop #Rocksteady #FootSoldier #CaseyJones #BaxterStockman #MondoGecko #GeneralTraag #Scratch and countless more.

We got to work and came up with a plan to get the entire line done, starting with #DarthVader / #Shredder with a #Krang sitting in an AT-ST machine. More will follow and eventually we hope to have a collection of 10 figures done for the unproduced line. Enjoy!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFwqiL8AqMW/

[Leo656]

That's pretty neat.

Kinda diggin' ApriLeia over there.

[Galactus]

Interesting. I'd only seen Leo as Luke Dooney art before. The rest is new to me.

[garsh]

This is the kind of stuff that makes this forum essential to me.