Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Rebooting Ruxpin - The Patchwork

     Reboots seem to be all the rage right now! Sometimes I think this is good, other times... not so much. Disney recently announced that they're officially rebooting DuckTales for the 30th anniversary of the series! This, to me, is an example of the good! 

     But anyways, a while back, just for fun, I started a little reboot of my own with the characters from the late Ken Forsse's The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin! I thought I'd keep it going, but FIRST... a recap of the ones I've done so far.

     Of course, there's Teddy, a spunky young illiop who travels to the land of Grundo in search of adventure. An illiop being sort of like a bear... only with clothes, I guess.

     Grubby is an octopede, and the clumsy yet loyal companion to our hero, Teddy. Grubby doesn't share Teddy's enthusiasm for adventure, but follows him to Grundo anyway, partly because he can pretty much be talked into anything and also because he just didn't have anything else to do.

     Next up is Newton Gimmick, a burly old inventor that used to serve as engineer on a royal airship before retiring. Gimmick now runs a junk yard in the small town of Bounder Pass, where he hires Teddy and Grubby as garbage... men.

     Leota the Woodsprite is a guardian, of sorts, of the forest. She's about two inches tall and doesn't have much in the way of magic, but what she does have IN SPADES is smarts! Leota can outwit the brightest of the bright and makes a pretty formidable foe for anyone daring to bring her forest any harm.

     Princess Erin is the headstrong heir to the throne of Grundo. She meets up with the rest of the gang on her quest to rescue her younger sister Eruzia from treacherous kidnappers. Epic stuff.

     The newest character I have to introduce isn't technically a character at all, but it is still a vital part of Teddy and his friends' adventure. It's the rickety but reliable airship that I'm dubbing, the A.S. Patchwork!

     It's like the old saying goes, you can take the grizzled old engineer out of the airship, but you can't stop him from just building another one out of spare parts found in a junkyard! ...okay. That's not a saying... It's not even that catchy... but it is what happened.

     Gimmick's ship, as you can see, is made from all sorts of different objects and was a ton of fun to draw! Who knows how Gimmick is able to get this heap of junk off the ground with just a big balloon, but in a world of talking teddy bears and 5 foot insects, a little suspension of disbelief is required, to say the least!

3 comments:

Zidders Roofurry said...

I love these so much...especially the Patchwork. My tabletop rpg character just bought an airship. I think I'm going to make it your version of the Patchwork. At least in my imagination. Thank you for creating this.

Joel said...

Dude, These are FANTASTIC! I just found this on a google search (I've loved TR since I was 5...and that was 30 years ago). I even made TR costume for halloween...last year. :P

Even though it's 2 years after this post--funny that the DuckTales reboot that you mentioned in the past is a now reality, and a killer good one at that--I give you a big thumbs up for the re-imagination here! I really love your style. Keep up the good work (wish this could be a reality like DT someday)

Nathan H. Boyd said...

I'm glad these are so well received!

Zidders - What would REALLY be awesome is an actual Teddy Ruxpin rpg!

Joel - I wish it would be a reality also. I saw that Teddy Ruxpin dolls are back in stores, with the old stories. Maybe this is the company's way of testing the market before they commit to making NEW stuff.