My roommate’s birthday was coming up and I was brainstorming good gift ideas. I tried to think about things he had said he wanted, but hadn’t actually bought. Two things stuck out in my mind: the pair of sai he was looking for at the Renaissance Festival and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle DVD he was excited about at Target a few days prior. In the distance, dark clouds rolled in over the horizon. The skies parted and there was an immense crackle; I had hatched a plan.
Project Red Raph
I wanted to create something that offered a bit of an experience as a gift. The basic idea was to create a footlocker that would have been used by one of the Ninja Turtles, specifically the sai-wielding red-bandanna Raphael. In it, I would collect some artifacts from the TMNT world, things that would belong to Raphael had he been real. I made a mental list and began to amass a little collection from some stores.
Turtle Wax: Super Hard Shell
The turtle wax was a gimmie. I mean, what self-respecting turtle wouldn’t want the Super Hard SHell protection that Turtle Wax can offer?
All ninja turtles have skateboards. I was a little disappointed in myself; if I had a few more days planning I would have made an 80′s style whale tale from a chunk of plywood, but as it was I had only a little time and a lot to do so I got a cheap one from Wal-Mart.
Louisville Slugger
I wanted something to represent Casey Jones’ (my favorite TMNT character) relationship with Raphael, so I got a Louisville Slugger 28″ from Wal-Mart and wrapped the handle in tape. The note taped to the top reads “This is my second favorite bat. Try it sometime. -Casey”
I had a spare 8″x10″ frame kicking around, so I decided to put a turtle brother family photo in it. I found a group picture and photoshopped it over a nighttime New York city street photo. One the back of the picture is written “A pizza run to Pie-zanos on 92nd St. Dude, April can take a radical picture!”
I was near a Borders and decided to throw a pair of books in while I was at it. Not that I expect my roommate to read them, just that I thought them appropriate.
The first book was “From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest”. I wanted Raphael to have something from Donatello, the “smart” turtle, so I got this. The inscription reads “It’s worth a read, bro. Just give philosophy a chance and I’m sure you’ll love it! -Donny”
I figured “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu would be a perfect item from Splinter. The inscription reads “Raphael, Strength and skill make a warrior fearsome, but true power comes from knowing ones opponent and using your mind to outsmart them. Study this text well, son. Splinter”
I figured every turtle ought to have his own secret emergency pizza stash. Just that little bit of ‘za to help make it through the hard times. The box is a Papa John’s box turned inside out, and drawn on. Unfortunately, Michelangelo polished this off long ago:
I figured the turtles would keep tabs on their opponents, so I made up a case file for Oroku Saki aka Shredder. You can view the case file in text format here: B-271635OS. The fake CCTV capture of the Shredder is here:
What a babe.
One of the most fun things I put in the box was this hidden April O’Neil pin-up. I used the line art from the deviantartist ~corvux-corax (absolutely stunning, by the way) and then tried my hand at coloring it. The background is another NYC photo. I even got a friend of mine to sign it in sharpie 
You can see the full attempt below:
Something I added that I did not get any pictures of was this: the collection of the three live-action and newest 3D TMNT movies. Attached to it, was a note that read “I can’t believe how they made you guys look! April”
The most important parts were the costume and the weapons.
Most pieces of the costume I cut out of a red t-shirt. The mask was a pain, and had to have extensions put on. The big pieces are the knee wraps, smaller pieces are the elbows, and the smallest are for the wrists. The turtles don’t look like that in the movies; they bear leather everywhere but their faces, but they look like this in the cartoons. The belt was a difficult bit. I ended up using some BDU belts I picked up at Hodge’s and gluing on the bucked, which was just a doorknob shield from Home Depot. Looks great though.
Putting it Together
Finding the footlocker to fit all this stuff in was the really difficult part. I needed something cheap, but I couldn’t find anything at all from several stores. I thought it was really odd; this is about the time of year a lot of kids go on scouting trips and they usually bring a footlocker along to hold their stuff. I tried probably seven different stores with no luck. Even my standby, Target, has seemed to have gotten rid of it’s stock of footlockers.
I was saved by my local Hodge’s Army/Navy Surplus (the second Army surplus store I hit) which had several different footlockers to choose from. I got a thirty-incher with black hardware on black casing, just long enough to hold the bat and the skateboard comfortably.
The problem was, the next step required the to be an inset level in the footlocker, which was naturally not there. I went to the Home Depot and got a 1/4″ piece of Sandiply cut to the box’s size, then grabbed some quarter round moulding. I stuck the moulding to the sides of the box, flat sides up, and then set the board on it. Perfect with some paint. And paint I did.
I spray painted the words “Raph’s Stuff” on the top and a simple “Keep Out” on the front, then I sprayed the top of the shelf and the inside of the lid black. I decorated the outside of the box with some NYC pizza place stickers I made using some logos I got off image search. It looked phenomenal.
The weapons came in at the very end from Bud K. A pair of Octagon Sai and two sets of ninja stars. Very solid stuff for the money, even if I did have to pay out the behind for next day shipping.
Since they arrived so late, I had a lot of trouble trying to secure them to the lid of the box. The sai were way heavier than I expected them to be and all I had bought was some Velcro. The stuff you see around the sai was foam-rubber weatherstripping that I was using to just try to get a pinch-hold on the tip of the weapons and keep them seated in place. Sadly, every time I closed the box they fell, ripping apart foam and Velcro and generally just wasting an entire bottle of superglue. I totally wish I had just got a big sheet of foam rubber from Hodge’s, it would have saved me about half a day just to make slits in the big sheet cut to size. The hour was late, so I had to put it in it’s box.
The story would be that I got this box of stuff shipped down from the NYPD’s evidence room as proof of the Turtles existance. I wrote a letter and included it in an envelope on the top, along with the key to the footlocker:
So Did He Like It?
See for yourself:
And as big a nerd as he may be at 31, at least he still has a fiance that loves him:
Happy 31st Birthday Greg!
