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News · 2026-08-13

Featured Artist: Killcutter, and the Dark Leo shot

By ninjaturtles.tv news desk

Featured Artist: Killcutter, and the Dark Leo shot

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A five inch action figure is standing on a sewer pipe with two swords drawn, backlit orange, steam rolling off the brick behind him. It looks like the last frame before the credits. It is a toy on a workbench, and the man who shot it filmed himself building the whole thing.

Dark Leonardo action figure on a sewer pipe with swords drawn, lit orange and teal with steam behind him
"Dark Leo". The figure is the BST AXN Dark Leonardo (Battle Ready), a BBTS 25th Anniversary exclusive. Photograph by Chuck Eiler / Killcutter, used with permission.
  • Artist: Chuck Eiler
  • Chicago
  • 21K+ on Instagram
  • Official BBTS content creator
  • Featured on Gizmodo, Screen Rant, PetaPixel

Who Killcutter is

Portrait of Chuck Eiler, lit with blue and orange rim light
Chuck Eiler, who works as Killcutter.

Chuck shoots out of Chicago and describes what he does as making small worlds feel massive. He has been at it long enough that the work has been picked up by Gizmodo, Screen Rant, PetaPixel and Bored Panda, he is an official content creator for Big Bad Toy Store, and he sells prints of his own photographs.

The Turtles are one corner of it. The range is the thing that gets you: Star Wars is the biggest slice, but there is Godzilla levelling a city in black and white, a Predator riding a carnivorous dinosaur, Frankenstein’s monster on a slab under green and red light, and a T-rex bearing down on a woman with an axe. Every one of them is a real figure on a set he built.

Darth Vader and three red lightsaber Sith closing in on a single blue bladeStar Wars Godzilla and a winged kaiju tearing through a city, in black and whiteKaiju The four Turtles and Splinter eating lunch on a girder above the cityTurtles A lone figure with an axe facing a Tyrannosaurus rex in a dust stormDinosaurs Jabba the Hutt's court lit in deep red with Boba Fett and a glowing blue whipStar Wars A Predator riding a large carnivorous dinosaur across a desertCrossovers Frankenstein's monster in a laboratory lit green and redHorror Boba Fett standing on a heap of defeated bounty hunters at sunsetStar Wars

Click any frame for the full size version. All photographs by Chuck Eiler, used with permission.

How the Dark Leo shot was built

Chuck filmed the build for BigBadToyStore’s 25 Years Collecting series. These are frames from it, in order, and they answer the question everyone asks first, which is how much of it is real.

The set on the bench with the lights in position, before the figure goes down.
The set on the bench with the lights in position, before the figure goes down.
Leonardo placed on the pipe, brick backdrop lit warm behind him.
Leonardo placed on the pipe, brick backdrop lit warm behind him.
Blocking the pose. Two swords out, weight on the back foot.
Blocking the pose. Two swords out, weight on the back foot.
The pipe run from above. Moss, rust and grime, all added by hand.
The pipe run from above. Moss, rust and grime, all added by hand.
Fog goes in. This is a real fog machine running while the shutter is open.
Fog goes in. This is a real fog machine running while the shutter is open.
The haze doing the work: it separates the figure from the backdrop.
The haze doing the work: it separates the figure from the backdrop.
Close to the final look, straight out of camera.
Close to the final look, straight out of camera.

The sewer is built. The steam is a fog machine running while the shutter is open. The orange comes from a light placed behind the set, not painted in afterwards. And the camera is down at the figure’s own eye level, which is the thing most people miss: get the lens to where the toy lives and it stops reading as a toy.

See it move

Killcutter on Instagram. Follow @killcutterphoto for more.

Why this figure

Dark Leonardo (Battle Ready) is a BBTS 25th Anniversary exclusive from The Loyal Subjects BST AXN line, and it suits what Chuck does for specific reasons. The colourway is almost entirely dark, so it takes coloured light beautifully instead of fighting it. It ships loaded with weapons, which is what allows a pose with that much diagonal energy. And at five inches it is small enough to stage on a bench without needing a room.

We keep a full page on it with the accessory loadout and gallery: Dark Leonardo (Battle Ready). The rest of the line is at The Loyal Subjects TMNT.

He does not use AI

Worth saying plainly, because it is the first thing people assume when they see work this clean. Chuck builds sets, poses figures, lights them and photographs them. Where digital work happens it happens on top of a real photograph of a real object, and he is open about which is which.

Follow Chuck at @killcutterphoto, see the portfolio at killcutter.com, and buy prints from his shop. Photographs and behind the scenes frames used with permission.

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