‘Mouse Guard’ Creator David Petersen Builds Models to Assist in Making Awesome TMNT Art
By Andy Khouri
As readers of his Eisner award-winning Mouse Guard series know very well, David Petersen is no slouch when it comes to draftsmanship. The artist’s work on Mouse Guard and really anything else he draws is characterized by incredibly lush and extremely precise line work. Petersen’s backgrounds in particular seem as though they were designed as sets for film shoots rather than comic book panels. As it turns out, that’s essentially what they are.
Faced with the daunting task of drawing a sewer tunnel for the cover of IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Micro-Series #2 one-shot, starring Donatello, Petersen put his pencil down and picked up an exacto knife to create a three-dimensional model upon which to base his drawing.