~ Here it is : THE single best ThunderCats art piece ever

Site Discussion Team Discussion
1

Wow what an amazing year this has been for me as a collector…

Guys, here is the piece I was telling you about that I needed to keep quiet while the details sorted themselves out.

I know you’ll skip straight to the pictures, but I’ll start with a preamble anyway…

When I was ten years old I had my first ThunderCats Annual. It wasn’t the Exodus one, it had the dark cover with the realistic art/airbrush style of all the ThunderCats leaping out at you with the Cats Lair and Mumm-Ra looming ominously in the background. I would stare at that cover for ages, at the details. It was so wild for me to see the cartoon characters painted in “real life”. The way that Lion-O stood out in the center, how Jaga’s cape swept over the young nobles. I fell in love with the art as a ten year old, and think in some way I’ve always wanted to see the original art piece as a grown up. For the last four years I’ve been hunting down original art from the cartoon, and hoping against hope that one day the most iconic piece of T-Cat art would surface, and that I’d be the lucky one to grab it.

And today is that day.

I just got the notice from the gentleman who has owned this piece for over 20 years that he’s dropped it off with my art broker, and that he’s picked up his fat fat fat cheque. Whatever, I don’t care, I’m just so thrilled that it is finally mine.

…

You’ll see that there are three pieces here that were painted on separate art boards. They were done this way for a few reasons I think, mainly so that much of the overlap between Lion-O and the other characters wouldn’t have to be painstakingly painted in to a single image.

The painting of Lion-O, and the seperate painting of the other Cats were photo stat copied onto high quality dublicates, then the copies were carefully cut out and glued onto a reproduction of the background piece. This final “copy version” (which I now also own) was then used as the printing template for the publicity pieces that went out for the show. At a later stage a “colour correction” version of the piece was prepared which was then used for most of the merchandise that we see today.

What I bought here is THE original hand painted artwork. It’s a phenomenal piece of ThunderCats history and the absolute holy grail of any collector. I could dance and sing from the rooftops about how thrilled I am to own this.

The site, and Cerealgeek will both have the chance to publish the pictures and the story behind this incredible item. I’ll ask that you each please avoid sharing these images with anybody until I give the okay, and I think they should make their first web appearance on the main page of this site, then will get stored away in my section.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/New%20TCats/TC_Background_Full.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/New%20TCats/TC_Background_Zoom.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/New%20TCats/TC_Group_Full.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/New%20TCats/TC_Group_Zoom.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/New%20TCats/TC_LionO_Full.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/New%20TCats/TC_LionO_Zoom.jpg

2

Mark congrats, those are indeed beauties

3

Thanks Matt I agree, I’m very proud to be the owner of these. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself as there is still the very risky proposition of shipping these babies to Canada though ! :frowning:

I’ll be researching like crazy over the next while trying to figure out who the artist of these pieces was. I want to get their name so I can commission them to do more T-Cats work!

4

Chris here…

Holy Mary Mother of God!!! :jaw: :jaw: :jaw: :jaw: :jaw:

Mark, those are AMAZING pieces to own! Like yourself, I’ve stared at those images many, many times over the years - my own personal memory of that artwork is when it was used on a ThunderCats plastic mug that I used for years until it got in too bad a shape and had to be thrown away - that is incredible! :slight_smile:

If I’m ever in Canada, can I stop by your house and see those images in person?! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

5

LOL

Sure thing Chris, you can drop by anytime. I’m actually considering flying across country to pick these up rather than take the chance that they get lost/damaged while in transit.

I’ve started pulling together pics of all the merchandise that this art was ultimately used on… trying to get some idea of how many places it showed up. The person I bought it from might have some more T-Cat goodies so I’m waiting to hear back about that too.

6

Chris here…

Fantastic, thank you! :slight_smile: starts looking up EasyJet flights to Canada :wink:

Take care… :slight_smile:

7

Hey gang, I’m trying to pull together as many pics of merchandise and promo materials that made use of the original art that I recently purchased. Could I ask that if you guys have any links or pics of merchandise like this that you post it here to help me out? I’m trying to develop a story about the artwork and how it was used. Would be appreciated!

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/thundercat.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/exodus.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/allthatglitters.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/105a_1.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/10d0_1.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/8ac1_12.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/7a91_1_b.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/3d4f_1.jpg

8

Chris here…

It was used by Rainbow Toys in the UK as part of their short-lived ThunderCats fan club:

http://www.thundercatslair.org/toys/mailaway/20a.jpg

Full story here: http://www.thundercatslair.org/toys/mailaway.html

It was also used as the front cover of the first UK TCats Annual, published by Grandreams in association with Marvel! :slight_smile:

Good luck tracking down everything these images were used for, I think you’ll find it’s a heck of a lot! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile:

9

Not only was it used for merchandise but it was the front picture used for the TV Promotion Kits as well as promo folders. Here’s it is

http://www.thundercatslair.org/staff/rodzm14/Miscellanous%20merchandise/Thundercats%20folder.jpg

and here as well http://cgi.ebay.com/Thundercats-Promotion-Kit-Extremely-Rare_W0QQitemZ280109293576QQihZ018QQcategoryZ1532QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

10

Wonderful score, Grizzlor. Thanks for sharing these great pieces with other fans. Can’t wait to see how you guys present them to the public :slight_smile:

11

Beautiful iconic artwork there Mark. Well done on tracking it down and buying it!

12

Truly agree that this is the best ThunderCats art piece ever.. Its great that someone who can really appreciate it will now own it, and the olnine community that is TCL.ORG will continue to benafit from this piece for years to come :slight_smile:

13

I’m looking for more merchandise like this one that has the “old” style of the costumes before the colour correction, so if you guys come across any please let me know.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b318/Grizzlor18/TCat%20Promo%20art/Party_hats.jpg

14

Well justed wanted to update you guys that I finally picked these art pieces up from Los Angeles (I was too scared to have them shipped, was worried that they would get damaged). So I flew out there and attended Comic Con later on in the week.

I’m so blown away by the incredible detail in these pieces, they are even more beautiful than I’d hoped. I’m planning on getting them scanned in full so that I can post them on the site, and I’m giving Busta Toons the printable sized files so that these pieces can be featured in cereal:geek issue #3 (sadly I was too late to get it into the 2nd issue).

This would have to be my all time wishlist piece of art and it’s now safe and secure in my home. I’m in love with it!

15

Chris here…

Awesome! Congratulations, Mark! :slight_smile:

Take care… :slight_smile: