Follow-Up Story: TMNT Puzzle Eraser Full-Set Review

Kind of an amalgamation of the various looks for the turtles...

Several months ago, I posted an article here on Doki Doki Arcade regarding a purchase I made at my local target. Although there were many items I discussed, there was one item that stood out from the rest, that elated me beyond all reason for the duration of that month. That item was none other than the Little Debbie Jack-O-Lantern Brownie, but the Donatello Puzzle-Eraser came in close second.

For those that don't remember, a Puzzle-Eraser is a mini-figure made out of eraser, made out of multiple parts that must be assembled, a little like a simple model kit. At the time, I had purchased a figure of Donatello from a series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles erasers, promising to report back when I had acquired the full set.

I never said I'd be punctual about it. I probably collected the full set within the month, but never really got around to doing anything with them until today, when I decided it was about time I let the world know whether the rest of the figures matched the impressive quality of the Donatello. Without further ado, I give you the complete run-down of everything you need to know about these Ninja Turtle Puzzle-Erasers I bought from Target.

So the first thing I should probably get out there is that these toys are based on the most recent animated iteration of the Turtles. No, thankfully not the Michael Bay nightmare (honestly, I didn't see it, so maybe it was good). These are based on the cartoon on Nickelodeon, which I really have very little experience with. My niece and nephew like it a whole lot, and the few episodes I've seen seemed pretty good over all, but for whatever reason it didn't really strike up my interest. Plus I don't get Nick or its affiliate channels. My Ninja Turtles are the ones from the 80's, for better or worse. 

That said, the designs, for the turtles at least, are pretty cool, and these are evocative of the basic, familiar turtle look, so it's okay. I'd probably personally prefer figures specifically based on Turtles in Time for Super Nintendo, but those would probably cost $45 each and be actually marketed to me and fellow nostalgia targets, which means I wouldn't dare buy them. These toys are definitely marketed towards kids, and that's just the way I like it.

Okay! On to the figures themselves. In terms of construction, the figures in general work really well. I haven't had any problems with the material breaking or tearing, as you might expect from eraser rubber, and all of the pieces fit together nicely. The only difficulty came in getting their bandannas on their little heads, but even that was relatively easy. For comparison's sake, there are also My Little Pony puzzle-erasers, and putting on their manes and tails is an awful experience. More on those later. Maybe.

Anyway. The sculpting is surprisingly detailed on all of the figures, and the resemblance to the cartoon characters is mostly really good. The faces are a little too small to be too accurate, but the various differences in size and body type are well captured. Donatello is a little lanky, Raphael is bulky and muscular, Leonardo is pretty average, and Michelangelo is on the small side. These little physical differences are one of the features of the new designs that I actually really like, so it's cool to see them represented here so well.

Unfortunately, the quality level of the figures is definitely not even, so I thought I would break it down by figure. Let's start with a quick recap of Don, who I think is probably the best of the bunch.

The classic Don-Chan.

First of all, Don's sculpt is probably the most accurate. Aside from his dead fish eyes, his head looks good, and his pose feels like he is ready for action. His bo stays in his hand pretty easily as well. He also stands very firmly, which I didn't realize was going to be such a big deal, but sadly its a major issue with some of the others. All said and done, Donatello is a solid little figure, and I'm glad he was the first one I bought.

I really thought I got a sharper picture of this... oops.

Next up is Raphael. I convinced a friend who I had bought dinner to repay my by getting this guy for me, so this guy came hot on the heels of the first purchase, since I didn't have to bother rationalizing spending my own money. Again, his sculpt is generally pretty good, but his face seems less right than Don's for some reason. His pose is also kinda lame, as it's hard to get him to do anything remotely interesting with his sai. His stance also makes it a little hard to get him to stand up consistently. Maybe the legs on mine were bent funny or something, but it really does take a firm hand to get him to stand. It's worth noting that he's the biggest of the figures and does have a satisfying heft to him. Not bad, but a little bit of a let down seeing as Don didn't have any of these problems.

It looks a little like he is crying, but that's just a small blemish.

I took a little break before getting Michelangelo, partially because I was a little let down by Raph, and partially because I was worried about my own mental state. When I did eventually pick him up, though, I was pleasantly surprised. His head sculpt is a fair bit better than Raph's, and captures the look of the cartoon character really well. He's got a nice firm stance, and you can even move his arms into some convincing actiony nunchuk poses. I sadly lost his other nunchaku, which only seems appropriate given as I don't think I still have ANY accessory from my classic TMNT figures. A good save with this one, and it managed to rekindle my interest.

I like to pretend that is a cool ninja pose, like he is reaching for his other sword... ugh...

That interest proved to be sadly misplaced, however, when I ended up getting Leonardo. I never really had a true Leonardo figure growing up, so I was looking forward to this guy a little more than I'd like to let on, but man was I ever let down. First of all, his face is about as weird as Raph's, with almost googly eyes, and no real resemblance to the cartoon character. His arms are frozen in really awkard poses, with one way to bent and the other way too straight, and for the life of me I cannot get him to stand in any remotely cool looking pose. His weight distribution is just all off, and he falls flat on his face if he is even a little off balance. I tried EVERYTHING to get him to stand, and the bizarre pose you see above is the only way he stands with any consistency. Considering his role as leader of the turtles, its a shame that this figure can't go front and center with the others. Easily the weakest of the bunch.

That said, I still found this to be a really cool line of figures. I love having little doodads around my desk, and these guys just look awesome, especially all together. They're also super cheap, which is nice considering how insanely expensive toys are, particularly collectibles. I can't afford to drop upwards of ten dollars on something I'm just gonna put on my desk, so being able to have the whole gang together, without any weird clashing themes like Astronaut Raph or Farmer Leo, and for a pretty low price tag, is really cool.

Unfortunately, these seem to be it as far as this line goes. I was really hoping for a series 2 with Shredder, Splinter, April, and maybe Casey Jones or something, but so far I haven't seen anything. In fact, the realm of puzzle-erasers seems woefully devoid of activity considering how cool these are. There are some My Little Pony erasers, and some Skylanders ones, but I was hoping to see more of these that would be up my alley, like Dragon Ball Z or Regular Show. Oh well, I suppose only time will tell.

In the meantime, these little guys will be happily stationed on my desk.

Steven Universe may be in DANGER and it really needs to keep going.

Despite being a grown man, I am still a pretty major cartoon enthusiast. Most people don't get that, and maybe it's because I'm an artist and am interested in the craft, maybe I am intensely susceptible to nostalgia, or maybe I really am just a giant kid that can't grow up, but for whatever reason, cartoons still resonate with me in a powerful way. Of course, I was never a typical kid, and was always a little quirky in my interests, and was drawn to cartoons that were a little offbeat compared to standard children's fare. As a kid, and even more now as an adult, it takes something special and unique to hit the right chord with me, and it doesn't happen very often.

Steven Universe is a show that, from the very first episode, I was overwhelmingly positive about. There is just so much right with this show that its almost difficult to put into words. It is a show that is overflowing with charm and heart. It's got a certain purity in its design and execution, like some long lost anime from the 60's or something, it's evocative of all the things that made cartoons great without any of the trappings of modern cynicism. It's earnest, it's honest, and it explores themes and feelings that are so universal that I think anyone, of any gender, and of any age could watch this show and take something from it.

As an artist, I love this show for the bold and unusual design sensibilities, gorgeous use of color and abstraction, and dedication to traditional animation techniques. As a writer, I respect this show for the well realized characters, the emotional undertones, and the brave exploration of unusual plots and under represented themes. As an audience, I watch this show for the heart, the humor, and the personality it exudes with every episode.

Its also probably the most casually progressive show on television right now, as it very naturally challenges and changes up pretty much every stereotype of the genre and medium. Like, seriously, the diversity of the cast, when it comes to size, shape, color, personality, gender identity... its remarkably inclusive, but manages to be so without ever seeming like that's the point. It all comes off as completely natural, which it should, because that's how diversity tends to actually be.

As a grown man, I can honestly say that this show has become one of the highlights of my week. Cartoon Network recently released a DVD of the show, which despite coming out over a year after the show's premiere only has 12 episodes, which is disappointing, but I believe they did the same thing with Adventure Time and Regular Show, so maybe that isn't a bad sign. The show is also available OnDemand or whatever your cable provider calls it. Either way, I can't recommend this show enough, and hope to be able to continue to write about it.

Bayonetta 2 Pixel Art and Twitter Glory

So Bayonetta 2 is getting pretty near release in North America, and I'm pretty excited about it. I've loved Platinum Games since back when they were Clover Studios, and more games from them is always a good thing. I absolutely adore the Wonderful 101, but I sadly missed out on Bayonetta, as I didn't have an Xbox 360 or PS3 when it came out, and never found the time to pick it up subsequently. The Wii U rerelease packaged with Bayonetta 2 will be my first time playing the original, and I'm looking forward to it.

It's been a long time since I did a real good demake, partly because nothing has caught my fancy and partly because I've been busy with other things which have occupied most of my time, but I enjoyed doing this kind of thing and thought it might be fun to do again. The goal was to picture a scene from Bayo 2, as if it were a classic 2D action game, ala Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden.

I'm probably most pleased with the sky, as capturing the sort of ethereal radiance was very tough, but I also am pretty proud of how much of Bayonetta's features I was able to squeeze into that sprite. People tend to 'oooo' and 'aaaaa' over really big sprites, but honestly those are much easier to make good, as they start to just become small drawings after a while. It's REALLY challenge to turn a hundred or so pixels into something that looks like anything, let alone a specific character, so I think I accomplished something good here.

I was also granted the supreme honor of having Bayonetta's real life daddy, madman Hideki Kamiya retweet the image with rare enthusiasm. Probably the first post I've eve made on Twitter that ANYBODY has ever looked at. Yay!

In other news, I'll be wrapping up the fourth issue of Nova Phase this week, which means it should be on (digital) store shelves in the near future, with the print compilation of 3 and 4 available on Amazon soon after. I hope. I'll make an announcement. In the mean time, issue 3 is available on Comixology now, so if you haven't already, check it out!

https://www.comixology.com/Nova-Phase-3/digital-comic/104319

Also working on the next chapter of Ja-Ja-Ja-Janken!, which is coming along nicely. With Saturday morning cartoons becoming officially extinct like, next month, I feel like my work on Saturday Morning Anime is more dire than ever.

Saturday Morning Anime for Grown Up Kids: Ja-Ja-Ja-Janken!

Imagine, if you will, that it is 6:00 am, and you are eight years old. In your hands you hold a bowl of Lucky Charms, and a television remote. The rest of your family is either still asleep or already out of the house, and the television belongs to you for a few glorious hours. Eager with anticipation, you turn on a fuzzy network TV channel, maybe twenty three or forty eight, and witness something magical...

That's it for now. More of this, as well as probably many other comics, coming in the near future. Enjoy!

Ninja Turtles Erasers and Halloween Treats

There's something intensely satisfying about acquiring pleasant little doodads, and I was recently treated to a few awesome discoveries at my local Target. It's been quite a while since my K'nex Pac-Man and Mario obsession, and with nothing but Halo and Call of Duty in the Mega Bloks blind bag bins (a somewhat alarming sign of the times, I think), I have largely been without trinkets to waste my money on. This all changed a few days ago, when I accompanied my wife for a stroll around our local Target monolith. Her intention was to purchase some command strips to hang up Zelda posters we framed and then shoved in a corner three months ago, but, as always, I was patrolling the isles for something to scratch my itch, and by the time we were at the check out, I had found three things that tickled my fancy.

The first, and perhaps most satisfying, was a box of Halloween themed Little Debbie brownies. LD brownies were the highlight of my lunch experience between grades 1 and probably 9, so I have a soft spot for the greazy little things. The Halloween theme, however, is what made these truly impossible to pass up. Each brownie is cut into a crude pumpkin shape, sort of an oblong hexagon, with orange frosting, flavored a bit like candy corn, and a spooooooky jack-o-lantern face. The fact that they were on sale for around a dollar or so was nice as well.

Armed with my box of tasty treats, I continued to troll the store for further satisfaction. I stumbled upon a sale on eShop cards, which basically amounts to free money, and was for several minutes engaged in a tumultuous inner conflict. Buy one, get a second 25% off... not exactly irresistible... Even with a 50 dollar card, you're only getting around 12.50 free, and dropping 87.50 on a casual trip to Target, exclusively set aside for future digital purchases, seemed unseemly. I eventually settled on two ten dollar cards, but only because they also came with AR cards for the 3ds application Photos with Mario. I love AR cards (I have as many of the Kid Icarus cards as I could get my hands on), so getting a couple bucks was a nice incentive. I got a Goomba, and Princess Peach. That was all they had.

Now, I had planned for this to be the extent of my purchase, but felt compelled to check out the impulse purchase wall by the registers, where they usually keep trading cards, whether they be Yugioh, Pokemon, Magic, or My Little Pony, baseball cards, and other little collectible junk. My eyes fell upon a blind bag looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles package, a tie in to the decent Nick cartoon and not the Michael Bay monstrosity, and had my curiosity sparked. On closer inspection, the product claimed to be a puzzle eraser, a term I had never heard before and didn't really know what to make of. Still, the package contents felt substantial, and it was cheap enough that I was comfortable taking a risk, around a buck or so. I wasn't sure what I was getting, exactly, but I was optimistic.

I want to take a moment to just say that I have vastly under appreciated the development of eraser design and construction, as what I ended up with was surprisingly bad ass. It's basically a miniature figure that you assemble from a few pieces, constructed of rubbery eraser stuff, and the final product is pretty impressive. The figure is made up of a lower body (hips and legs), two pieces (front and back) that meet with the lower body to form the shell, two arms that plug in fairly sturdily, a weird little nub of a head, and a bandanna that is almost impossible to get on to the head piece, and that has hilariously dead googly eyes painted on.Once finished, the figure stands maybe 3-3.5 inches tall, and comes with a little weapon made of hard plastic. I had purchased Donatello, or Don-chan as we affectionately call him in my household, partially because I liked him as a kid and partially because his was the front most bag on the rack. I later coerced a friend into getting me Raphael, who, although less cooperative in the standing process, is pretty decent as well.

I really like these figures, for a few reasons. The sculpt and construction is surprisingly good, and considering these things are supposed to be erasers, they actually work pretty well as straight up toys, whether you mean to play with them or just stand them around your desk (I do a little of both). They are also super cheap, which is another major factor in their appeal. As a grown man, I find it pretty hard to justify toy purchases, which is why I tend to gravitate towards figures of the small and cheap variety. I would never drop the cash to have a full set of Turtles figures for desk display, as they're simply to expensive. These little guys are great, though, as I can cheaply get a satisfying set of the whole gang for less than the cost of a single, full fledged Turtle figure, without sacrificing too much in terms of detail or sheer coolness, as these are several billion steps ahead of the also small and cheap Lego Turtle figures in that department.

I don't know how well they work as erasers though.

A New Direction, And Saturday Morning Anime For Grown Up Kids

I've been doing a good deal of thinking lately, about what I want to do creatively. I have spent the last two months or so working almost non-stop on the fourth issue of Nova Phase, which I think looks and reads pretty damn awesome, but it's made me question certain hopes and beliefs I had held on to. For the longest time, I thought that getting a comic published would change everything for me. I thought that someday I would get this big break, and suddenly my career would be awesome. I've been working on Nova Phase for quite some time now, and although the initial high of positive reviews and long awaited validation was nice, it has since given way to the very real feeling that, in many ways, this is getting me nowhere.

Nova Phase is a very time consuming project. I draft, draw, color, shade, and letter the entire thing myself. It's very difficult to work quickly, because the precise placement of every pixel is very important to the look of the finished product, and the scale of the art is literally hundreds of times larger than any traditional pixel art project really should be. There are probably a billion more pixels in a single issue of Nova Phase than in any one real 8-bit game game, and despite the scale, I still chip away at it zoomed in so close that it's like painting with your face an inch away from the canvas.

It also makes me absolutely zero money. I have never made a cent from Nova Phase, and probably never will. To produce Nova Phase in a remotely timely manner would require me to work on it like a full time job, which would mean I wouldn't have time for a full time job, which would mean that I would not ever make any money. I don't even have time to find commission work, let alone work on any commission that I did find. As an adult with very adult sized bills, this makes life very difficult, as I never have any money.

So here I am, almost a year after my big dream of professional comic artistry came true, and very little has changed. I'm still nobody, and I'm still basically poor.

So like I said, I've been thinking. After years of casual research, I have determined that there exists no existing publisher that deals in the type of content I'm interested in creating. Every major and minor publishing house is either too schlocky, too artsy, or too impenetrable to present a good match for what I want to do. There just isn't an environment for what I want to do. But what do I want to do exactly? I thought long and hard about that, but after analyzing the ideas I am most enamored with, I think I have more or less nailed it down.

I want to make Saturday Morning Anime For Grown Up Kids. I want to make the kind of stupid, D-list, hastily dubbed by Fox Kids without watching the whole thing to compete with Pokemon, Saturday morning anime, but with the added benefit of absolute self awareness. I want to write comics that know exactly why they are stupid, and then go absolutely off the wall. I want to deconstruct the kind of crazy crap I watched as a kid, but without losing the colorful fun or frantic energy that made those shows so hypnotic. I've tossed around a few names for this subgenre that I am trying to pioneer. A Self-Abridging Series could be one description, but I think  Saturday Morning Anime For Grown Up Kids is a bit more catchy. There are, I think, a few shows out there that might fit into this subgenre, though perhaps unknowingly. Black Dynamite, Gintama, and to some extent Steven Universe are good examples of what I'm after.

Also, I don't want to sell anything. I have no means of distribution, and no interest in seeking a partnership or deal with any existing entity that could handle such a thing, so I'm just gonna give this crap away for free. I want my online presence to be a constant stream of maddening content, available to anyone and everyone, completely free of charge. I'm gonna be poor either way, so I'd rather be poor and have people enjoying my work than not, so I think this is the best way.

Finally, I need to split up my blogs. Although I have long populated Doki Doki Arcade with whatever I damn well felt like, I think the time has come to focus. Doki Doki Arcade will remain focused on video game related musings, of which I will probably still have many. I'm planning an exhaustive article on Time Stalkers once I manage to get some momentum going, so never fear. I also finally got a scanner again, so getting quick art up here will be much easier. In fact, the illustration at the top of this page will have been done in like, 25 minutes as soon as I am done writing this. I can't want to see how it turns out.

ANYWAY, Doki Doki Arcade will continue to focus on video games, while my original comic creations will get a new home, probably called Saturday Morning Anime For Grown Up Kids, but I haven't decided yet. We shall see. Original creations that take the form of games, like Bird Force, I will play by ear. They will probably be represented on both sites, or maybe I'll make a development blog.

In the past, I was too shy and ashamed of self promotion to bother caring how many people looked at my work, but things are different now. For my work to matter at all, people need to see it, and for that to happen, I need to get out there. Nova Phase made me recede into a quiet place of non-stop work, but I need to get out of that place and back to interacting. Nobody else is going to make an environment in which my work will thrive, so I need to try to make one myself. That's what I'm gonna do.

Lots of work on AtomMan

Was seized by the desire to work on AtomMan, a project I've been working on and off on for a very long time. It was actually the first ever game I ever made, waaaay back in like 1999, when I was just a 6th grader! It originally started as a MegaMan fan game, but after a little while, I guess I wanted to make up my own bad guys and such, and it turned into a VERY thinly veiled ripoff, parody, homage, or whatever you want to call it. The sprites were even just crappy recolored versions of MegaMan characters, with pretty minor tweaks. There was a great deal of humor in the game, and some pretty terrible and basic gameplay, but I felt pretty accomplished.

Now, years later, I couldn't really resist the urge to look at these characters again, and I started to think that maybe there was some potential here. Sure, it started as a pretty basic ripoff, but some of the designs had genuinely cool elements, and I thought I could re-imagine it into something much more original, while still obviously honoring the games that inspired it.

So yeah, the inspiration is probably SUPER OBVIOUS, but I think this turned out really well. I don't want to talk to much about the story just yet, but these guys are the main bad guys.

Now, because I can't focus on anything, this is both a comic and a game, so here's some of the animations and such I've whipped up!

 Look at him go! These are just his basic animations, but there are going to be tons of other weapons and maybe even forms to take on. To get started, though, I think these are coming along nicely.

I also mocked up a little screenshot today, which I think turned out well. This is the first time since being a kid that I've gotten this far on this project, so it's pretty exciting.

 Not  finished anything yet, but just trying to establish the look of the game. Obviously very MegaMan inspired, not going to debate or deny that, but I want to push this game into some pretty out there territory. I want to try to bring all the things I loved about the Legends and Battle Network games into the basic gameplay of a 2D classic MegaMan game, but there's elements of other games from this era that I really loved back then, including Shenmue, Brave Fencer Musashi, Legend of Zelda and Mystical Ninja.

OKAY! So that's what I got so far. Feeling pretty good about it so far, but definitely a work in progress.