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RakaiThwei — Giger Van Gogh

Published: 2014-08-04 07:31:24 +0000 UTC; Views: 1508; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 5
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Description It's been a while since I have decided to do a new Microhero and I wanted to try my hand at creating a TMNT character in Microhero format. Aside from Aliens vs Predator, one of my favorite franchises of all time has always been Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ever since I was a child, TMNT has been a very big part of my child and I'm sure anyone who is an 80's or 90's Kid, has had the Turtles influence their lives in some way or another. I have never really made a TMNT fan character before though a couple of years ago a friend of mine and I had collaborated on creating some TMNT characters and this character was but one of four results of said collaboration and while the character was initially a Turtle-Tot, I decided to create what he would be as an adult.

Meet Giger Van Gogh. He is officially my first ever TMNT fan character, and perhaps another character I will further develop through roleplaying. Originally, Giger Van Gogh was supposed to be a mutant Red Ear Slider/Box Turtle hybrid due to his parents being a Red Ear Slider and a Box Turtle. However researching actual Turtle hybrids, it seems that Pond Slider and Box Turtles cannot produce offspring. So I revamped the character to be a mutant Red Ear Slider. If it isn't obvious enough, he does have the name of two artists-- he's named after Dark Sexual Fantasy artist, Hans Rudi Giger and of course impressionist painter, Vincent Van Gogh. I wanted to give him Giger's name because Giger happens to be one of my favorite artist, and I named him after Giger long before Giger's unfortunate death. I also went with the name Van Gogh to keep with the TMNT theme of having an artist name. There is a working back story for Giger Van Gogh but that is another discussion for a whole time. Anyway, I am babbling too much about this character, so let me explain how he was made.

Giger was created with a TMNT base that was provided by Carnage over at Microheroes International Board. To get his skin tone down, I have had to use four shades of green and worked with the shades in accordance to the base template's pixels in order to have the right shade tones in place. The plastron shell largely remain untouched but I wanted to add scars to give the micro some personality to it. The scars were done using brown and light yellow pixels to give it that scratched and scarred appearance. This was inspired by the scarred plastron shells on the live action TMNT references I've used from memory. The brown scarf was entirely created from scratch and it took three attempts to give it the look I waned, and they were done using a brown outlining, then filled in with different shades of brown to give it a cloth like appearance. The elbow and knee pads were from another TMNT base but they were originally brown, for this microhero, I had opted to color them a leathery black in appearance. The same can be said about the belt. The wrist wraps were extremely difficult to do but I've had to reference numerous microhero bases and examine the pixel work. It took some experimenting with colors but with light browns and tans, I got the desired cloth wrap which I was going for and I think I did it pretty well.

As for the red arm band, that was created partially from scratch as I had worked with different shades of red to give it a cloth like look, but the flaps were were originally a mask accessory on the default base but cut shorter to make it look arm band appropriate. Interestingly enough, the arm band is also meant to be a mask/bandana belonging to one of the original four TMNT, and it doesn't belong to Raphael as in the Mirage TMNT continuity, all Turtles wore red!

Giger Van Gogh is Copyright to Me.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is Copyright to Viacom/Paramount.
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Comments: 10

BlueRoseKelly [2014-08-06 05:58:57 +0000 UTC]

nice.

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RakaiThwei In reply to BlueRoseKelly [2014-08-06 06:25:15 +0000 UTC]

Thank you very much!

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BlueRoseKelly In reply to RakaiThwei [2014-08-07 06:45:35 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome.

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Drakhand006 [2014-08-04 10:27:58 +0000 UTC]

Interesting character. I've not been too vocal about it, but always loved TMNT... well let me rephrase that, the older TMNT adaptions. Also kind of like the recent Nickolodeon one, but not really sure how I feel about the new film. I like how you kept him true to the TMNT char theme of giving him the name of artists.

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RakaiThwei In reply to Drakhand006 [2014-08-04 12:54:36 +0000 UTC]

I have been a fan of the older TMNT ever since I was a child. I was introduced to the Turtles from the 1987 Saturday Morning cartoon like most children of our generation were and for a long time I thought that those were the original version of the Turtles, but then I learned that they had started out from an independent comic book which was ran by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird back in 1984, and when I found out about these comics I had wanted to read them for a while. I came across the Archie TMNT comics and was under the assumption that they were the original comics but they weren't and then I found out more about the Mirage comics and how dark in story telling they were. As soon as I read the Mirage TMNT, the Turtles weren't Kids Stuff anymore.. they were actually mature oriented and I loved the Mirage version since.

I'm glad to know that you think Giger is an interesting character. He might end up becoming my main character considering that my faith in the Predator franchise is fleeting. With the upcoming Fire and Stone comics going the way that they are and my lack of interest in reading them, and with no information on the Shane Black movie.. My faith is really on the line here and I just hope Shane doesn't unveil too much of the Predators and inject things which I would disagree or find stupid. I mean I get that he had done re-writes to the shooting script of the first movie, and starred in the first movie but what if the movie goes in a direction I don't want it to follow in? Sure, it's Shane Black but I honestly think he should've just played it safe by hitting the reset button and starting over rather than "mining the mythology" for what it's worth. So assuming I completely fall out of Predator, TMNT is going to be the safety net which I've set up for myself.

As for the new Turtles movie... If you watched Turtles Forever, you'd know that in TMNT lore, it's now established that every medium of the Turtles is considered their own universe. They even had the 87 TMNT meet the 2K3 TMNT, and even had them meet the Mirage TMNT. So really, if the new TMNT movie sucks and chances are considering that it's Michael Bay producing it, with Megan Fox starring.. Play it off as one universe in the TMNT multiverse.

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purpleshadowbooster [2014-08-04 07:37:03 +0000 UTC]

oohh he is cool    bet he awesome char   

i want to see the new movie  XP 

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RakaiThwei In reply to purpleshadowbooster [2014-08-04 07:41:51 +0000 UTC]

Thank you for saying that is awesome, and I haven't even really spent a lot of time in developing him through roleplaying except for when he was just a little Turtle-Tot with my friend when we were creating these characters. So I hope to develop him further and have him become one of my main characters that I happen to roleplay with, assuming that I find someplace to roleplay and develop this character further. Creating him in Microhero form was a challenge.

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purpleshadowbooster In reply to RakaiThwei [2014-08-04 07:50:39 +0000 UTC]

you're welcome. 

funny i develop my chars and flash them out in RPs too    I just use notes or skype to roleplay     i bet he will be cool and awesome char when you do. 

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RakaiThwei In reply to purpleshadowbooster [2014-08-04 08:05:54 +0000 UTC]

I find that roleplaying is just another way of helping one to create characters and to immerse themselves in these particular character's experiences. Whatever experiences these characters have in roleplay, eventually mold them into who they become. Sure some characters have already a formulated backstory and even a personality to boot but when they are freshly made out and put into a world, then they take on developments of their own and they experience things which were never formulated in the core backstory. Roleplaying is a way to be creative too!

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purpleshadowbooster In reply to RakaiThwei [2014-08-04 08:33:09 +0000 UTC]

i agree with what you say    That is how i work too.  I throw my OCs in to all kind of worlds and my god i have so mach fun with them all  <3   just wish i had more roleplayers to do more RPs 

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