1987 Cartoon-style TMNT custom toys

Last year, I posted about my Mirage-style TMNT repaints. And I had this photo ready to go, but I’ve had so many other things to post, I just hadn’t gotten to these yet!

Anyhow, at some point I was buying TMNT figure lots off eBay, and ended up with a bunch of duplicate figures, including the four original turtles. Since Playmates Toys originally offered these figures in different flesh tones and very dark mask colors, I thought some more cartoon-accurate paint could be cool.

The accessories are all legit TMNT accessories I had extras of, painted up to be as cartoony as possible — You can see the paint chipping off the wraps on Donatello’s bo staff in the photo (and some damage to Raphael’s face, but shhh).

To make them even more cartoon-accurate, I made some belts from electrical tape, and held that in place by hammering a thumb tack into each of their torsos. I painted the tacks silver prior to the hammering, and then added the initials to their belts afterwards. Amazingly, the electrical tape belts have held up pretty well. I don’t 100% remember when I made these, but it’s was at least a decade before that photo was taken in the summer of 2020. And I’m looking at them on my shelf right now, and the belts are still fully intact.

Anyways, the original TMNT toys are fun to paint. That’s a major reason why I’ve made so many customs from that line!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and all related characters are owned by Nickelodeon.

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