Cowabunga!! Nickelodeon has begun airing their new CG animated TV series of the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' and after three episodes I can positively say this show is pretty cool. While most of it is CG animated, it really does it's best to remind us of the Turtles' comic book past by including 2D backgrounds and visual effects while throwing still image sequences (animated in After Effects) into the mix. A great follow up to (although maybe not as sophisticated as) Warner Brother's CG animated 'TMNT' feature from 2007, which was done by Francis Kao's Imagi Animation studios in Hong Kong.
The new series joins Nickelodeon's other CG animated hit series 'Kung Fu Panda: Legends of awesomeness' and definitely brings back some good memories of the nineties, when Kevin Eastman and Peter laird's comic book characters turned into pop culture icons almost overnight after getting their own TV cartoon series in 1988, which consisted of an amazing 193 episodes and ran until 1996.
A two-part pilot, 'Rise of the Mutants', introduced new viewers to the four Turtles and their ninja master, who retreated to the New York sewers after they came in contact with an extra terrestrial substance known as 'the ooze' and started to mutate.
Hamato Yoshi, the honorable ninja and master of the turtles, turned into the huge rat, known as Splinter. His pet turtles, of course, became his full grown martial arts pupils, which he named after the four great renaissance masters: Leonardo (the leader of the gang, wearing a blue mask), Raphael (wearing a red mask, he's the most aggressive and a real fighter), Michelangelo (the goofy carefree surfer dude type, wearing an orange mask) and Donatello (the nerdy inventor-type that likes to fool around with all kinds of equipment).
In the series, the Turtles fight the aliens that created the Ooze. Physically challenged as the beings are, (well, they're pretty much just a head) the critters use robots, disguised as human clones, to fight the Turtles. As in the previous animated series, our green friends are helped by April O' Neil, who got kidnapped with her father (a scientist), by the extra terrestrials.
Above: It's all in the eyes. April O'Neil screams when she meets the Ninja Turtles for the first time, as she's being rescued from the aliens by Donatello during one of the fight sequences in the Pilot episode. In the original comic books, April was an assistant to mad scientist Dr. Baxter Stockman, while in the earlier animates series, she was a reporter for channel 6 news.
The voice cast include actors Jason Biggs ('American Pie') as Leonardo and Sean Astin ('Lord of the Rings') as Raphael. Rob Paulsen, who did the voice of Raphael for the Nineties cartoon series, now voices Donatello and Greg Cipes (known for his many characters on 'Ben 10') portrays Michelangelo.
Above: In the comic books and the live action films that were released by Fox, Splinter was the mutated pet rat of ninja master Hamato Yoshi. In the animated series both in the nineties and now, Master Yoshi himself turned into a sewer rat.
Below (click to enlarge) : Master Yoshi recounts of his past in japan, where he fought his best friend over the love of his life, a woman who died afterwards in a fire. His best friend became his worst enemy, Shredder, who is now hunting him in the US, to pick up where they left off. The illustration below is part of the scrolling 2D sequences used to tell this back story. (2D Sequences were done by Ciro Nieli, Irined Maramba, Byron Penaranda and Marco Li).
All 3D character models for the series were done by Daniel Aronoff, Joe Dela Torre, Leonard Dill, Zechariah Hutton, Dev Karna and Patrick Warner, while overall Animation production is in the hands of Technicolor India in Bangalore, who were also responsible for the cinematic animations of Naughty Dog's 'Uncharted' 1 & 2, Sony's 'God of War 2' and Epic's 'Gear's of War 2'. They've also done all animation for Nickelodeon's 'Kung Fu Panda' and 'Penguins of Madagascar' CG animated TV series. They currently have 800 artists on staff. The current season of the Ninja Turtles consists of 26 episodes and a second season has already been green lighted. The new series premiered on September 29 in the States while the first episodes aired this week in UK/Europe. The series will premiere in the Netherlands on November 4th.
Check the Cowabunga Corner site for any and all information on the Turtles and visit their YouTube page for great behind the scenes stuff and interviews with the storyboard artists designers. Check the interview with Ciro Nieli below.
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