The Alphabet Challenge | S

S is for Splinter

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are without a doubt a phenomenon and indeed to this day are still going strong, no matter how many times they retell their story. Of course, the franchise is equally dependent on their rat sensei, (expecting all 2012 TMNT fans to hold a moment of silence) Master Splinter, real name Hamato Yoshi.

I don't think I have ever drawn him before and this time I really wanted to do him justice. Now while the Turtles only have minor changes throughout their years, Splinter has a diverse variety of designs so I decided not to focus on a particular version of him and to merge the three I was most familiar with, the televised Master Splinters from the 80's, 4Kids and 2012 cartoons.

I got a reference for a martial arts pose, deciding this was the pose to go for and then simply drew the human form with this pose, remembering to make a few modifications for Splinter's body type. After that it was a case of replacing some of the human parts with rat parts. The easiest head to construct was that of the 2012 Splinter, and personally my favourite (I might as well say Nickelodeon's take on the show is my overall favourite).

You'll notice that I took his costume design from the 4Kids Splinter and his colour scheme (minus the hands, feet and nose) from the 1980's Splinter, a way of including all of the Splinters that contributed to my history with the franchise.

I was going to include a symbol of the Hamato Clan on his costume but decided against it for two reasons. The size of the logo would make it difficult to read properly and the colouring would allow the logo to blend in too easily.

Have you seen the letter R? If not you can check it out via my page for the 'Alphabet Challenge' as well as previous entries. Look out for T coming soon!