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Description
When it comes to adventures, it helps to have an ally, or better yet, a lot of them!

For the longest time, I've always wanted to do a Paper Mario themed artwork; more specifically, an artwork involving Mario's partners who tag alongside him during his adventures. I've always found the partners to be some of the most interesting parts of the Paper Mario franchise, and it's because of the number of ways they can help Mario.

You may have noticed that I only included the partners from the first two games: 64 and The Thousand-Year Door. Well, the reason I only included them instead of every single partner from the franchise was because 1) having every single partner would be way too much, and 2) I think these partners are more iconic than the ones that appeared in post-TTYD games, like Super Paper Mario (Tippi and the Pixls), Sticker Star (Kertsi), Color Splash (Huey), and The Origami King (Olivia and Bobby). Another thing I like about the partners I featured is that they're, for the most part, really just nicer, reskinned versions of some of Mario's most iconic enemies like Goombas, Koopas, Bob-ombs, etc. If I had to choose which partner is my favorite, I'd have to say that I can't decide, because they all have their own unique powers, that it'd be like comparing apples to oranges: they're both great in their own way, so why bother comparing them? I also can't choose which pair of characters with the same power is better because that would be like comparing oranges with oranges: they're the exact same, so why choose one over the other? Fun fact, when making this artwork, I noticed that a majority of the partners have some of the exact same skills, and some of them aren't even the same species. For examples, there's...

The Goombas who likes to tattle out fun/interesting comments regarding a character or a location (Goombario and Goombella)
The Koopas whose shells you can use to obtain out-of-reach items (Kooper and Koops)
The Bob-ombs who you can use to blow up slightly damaged walls (Bombette and Bobbery)
The partners who can help you go over gaps your normal jump will not regularly reach (Parakarry and Yoshi)
The partners who allow you to become invisible so you don't get spotted by enemies or pass through obstacles (Bow and Vivian)
The partners who allow you to discover items hidden in sight (Watt and Ms. Mowz)
The only partners who don't seem to have any connections are Sushie, Lakilester and Flurrie; Sushie allows you to swim in water. but that skill is replaced with a paper boat transformation in TTYD, Lakilester allows you to ride over hazardous obstacles, which is mostly nonexistent in TTYD, and Flurrie (who first appeared in TTYD), who you can use to blow away certain items, doesn't have a counterpart.

Also, if you're interested, here's a file from my Sta.sh that features the each characters' asset so you can see their full bodies, since each one of them has at least one part of their bodies obscured by another character.

Now onto the artwork!

I originally started this project on one of the last few days of May. Inspired by my artwork of Kat and Ana , I decided that this was going to be my next piece to use lineweight. I mentioned on Twitter a few days ago that lineweight is one of my favorite aspects when it comes to illustration. For those that forgot, lineweight is the concept of using non-uniform outlines, where instead of having the outlines be of a consistent thickness, they can appear both thick and thin. This allows the illustration to pop out more and feel more expressive. As much as I like this style of outlining, I rarely use it because of how time-consuming it is. Seriously, each one of these characters can take around 10-30 minutes each just to outline, from drawing out the initial lines to erasing parts to create the varying levels of thickness.

When drawing out the characters, I drew each of them in a different set. The first set featured the first, second and third partners to join from both games (Goombario, Goombella, Kooper, Koops, Bombette and Flurrie), the second set included the fourth and fifth partners (Parakarry, Yoshi, Bow, and Vivian), and the third set featured the sixth and seventh partners (Watt, Bobbery, Lakilester and Ms. Mowz). However, once I drew out the characters, I thought that something felt off, like someone was missing. It was after a few moments of thinking that I realized that I forgot to draw Sushie. The reason why I forgot about her was because I was using a reference sheet that showed each of the partners, and that sheet neglected Sushie because it wanted both rows of characters to feature the same number. Once I drew out Sushie, I simply added her to the third set.

With all the partners drawn, now came another tricky part of putting this piece together: adding them to bigger picture. Because there were 15 characters (not including Mario), I now had the daunting task of trying to put them in positions that would be believable, and making sure they don't overlap each other too much. Since I couldn't put the characters in while in their packs, I had to give each character their own layer, which naturally filled my layer tab, but good thing there's a folder function that allows me to compress all those layers into one place that I can hide it, which will allow easier access to the layers below it.

One more thing I feel worth mentioning when making this artwork is that, if this piece is going to be Paper Mario themed, it has to feel Paper Mario themed. I accomplished the Paper Mario aesthetic by putting in this spiky circle border around the screen. I kind of find my usage of this ironic because this idea came from Sticker Star, my least-favorite entry in the franchise (I haven't played Color Splash or The Origami King because of this game). The reason I included it despite my dislike of the game is that it just looked right to me. In order to create the border, I took a stock image of a spiky circle and a stock image of a blue polka dot pattern. First, I pasted the circle onto the image, and used the select tool to erase the shape, leaving only the border. Second, I took the polka dot pattern, used the select tool to select the negative space of the circle, and used the selected area to erase the pattern in the selected area. I noticed that the lines aren't perfectly straight, but I think it plays into the idea that this border is made of paper like everything else, which I emphasized by putting in a drop shadow (it's most noticeable on top). Speaking of things being made of paper, I wanted to emphasize the fact that the characters are 2D by having them layered above the border, and by including a shadow on the border. I created the shadow by making a merged copy of the characters (it's a function that allows me to copy every visible layer and paste them all into one merged layer), coloring it in completely black, putting the shadow in a good position, and use the select tool to select the negative space in the circle and deleting any part of the shadow in that area. Lastly, when it comes to the background inside the border, I decided to take the background from the title screen of The Thousand-Year Door. I went with for the background because 1) TTYD is my favorite game in the franchise, 2) the backgrounds of Paper Mario 64 are too pixelated or distorted to use, and 3) it wouldn't make much sense to use a background from a post-TTYD game.

Hope you like my love letter to the first two Paper Mario games. Hopefully, one of these days, we'll get an entry in the franchise that will go back to its original roots, as it was those mechanics that attracted players to the games in the first place, and maybe feature more partners to join alongside Mario.

Description
When it comes to adventures, it helps to have an ally, or better yet, a lot of them!

For the longest time, I've always wanted to do a Paper Mario themed artwork; more specifically, an artwork involving Mario's partners who tag alongside him during his adventures. I've always found the partners to be some of the most interesting parts of the Paper Mario franchise, and it's because of the number of ways they can help Mario.

You may have noticed that I only included the partners from the first two games: 64 and The Thousand-Year Door. Well, the reason I only included them instead of every single partner from the franchise was because 1) having every single partner would be way too much, and 2) I think these partners are more iconic than the ones that appeared in post-TTYD games, like Super Paper Mario (Tippi and the Pixls), Sticker Star (Kertsi), Color Splash (Huey), and The Origami King (Olivia and Bobby). Another thing I like about the partners I featured is that they're, for the most part, really just nicer, reskinned versions of some of Mario's most iconic enemies like Goombas, Koopas, Bob-ombs, etc. If I had to choose which partner is my favorite, I'd have to say that I can't decide, because they all have their own unique powers, that it'd be like comparing apples to oranges: they're both great in their own way, so why bother comparing them? I also can't choose which pair of characters with the same power is better because that would be like comparing oranges with oranges: they're the exact same, so why choose one over the other? Fun fact, when making this artwork, I noticed that a majority of the partners have some of the exact same skills, and some of them aren't even the same species. For examples, there's...

The Goombas who likes to tattle out fun/interesting comments regarding a character or a location (Goombario and Goombella)
The Koopas whose shells you can use to obtain out-of-reach items (Kooper and Koops)
The Bob-ombs who you can use to blow up slightly damaged walls (Bombette and Bobbery)
The partners who can help you go over gaps your normal jump will not regularly reach (Parakarry and Yoshi)
The partners who allow you to become invisible so you don't get spotted by enemies or pass through obstacles (Bow and Vivian)
The partners who allow you to discover items hidden in sight (Watt and Ms. Mowz)
The only partners who don't seem to have any connections are Sushie, Lakilester and Flurrie; Sushie allows you to swim in water. but that skill is replaced with a paper boat transformation in TTYD, Lakilester allows you to ride over hazardous obstacles, which is mostly nonexistent in TTYD, and Flurrie (who first appeared in TTYD), who you can use to blow away certain items, doesn't have a counterpart.

Also, if you're interested, here's a file from my Sta.sh that features the each characters' asset so you can see their full bodies, since each one of them has at least one part of their bodies obscured by another character.

Now onto the artwork!

I originally started this project on one of the last few days of May. Inspired by my artwork of Kat and Ana , I decided that this was going to be my next piece to use lineweight. I mentioned on Twitter a few days ago that lineweight is one of my favorite aspects when it comes to illustration. For those that forgot, lineweight is the concept of using non-uniform outlines, where instead of having the outlines be of a consistent thickness, they can appear both thick and thin. This allows the illustration to pop out more and feel more expressive. As much as I like this style of outlining, I rarely use it because of how time-consuming it is. Seriously, each one of these characters can take around 10-30 minutes each just to outline, from drawing out the initial lines to erasing parts to create the varying levels of thickness.

When drawing out the characters, I drew each of them in a different set. The first set featured the first, second and third partners to join from both games (Goombario, Goombella, Kooper, Koops, Bombette and Flurrie), the second set included the fourth and fifth partners (Parakarry, Yoshi, Bow, and Vivian), and the third set featured the sixth and seventh partners (Watt, Bobbery, Lakilester and Ms. Mowz). However, once I drew out the characters, I thought that something felt off, like someone was missing. It was after a few moments of thinking that I realized that I forgot to draw Sushie. The reason why I forgot about her was because I was using a reference sheet that showed each of the partners, and that sheet neglected Sushie because it wanted both rows of characters to feature the same number. Once I drew out Sushie, I simply added her to the third set.

With all the partners drawn, now came another tricky part of putting this piece together: adding them to bigger picture. Because there were 15 characters (not including Mario), I now had the daunting task of trying to put them in positions that would be believable, and making sure they don't overlap each other too much. Since I couldn't put the characters in while in their packs, I had to give each character their own layer, which naturally filled my layer tab, but good thing there's a folder function that allows me to compress all those layers into one place that I can hide it, which will allow easier access to the layers below it.

One more thing I feel worth mentioning when making this artwork is that, if this piece is going to be Paper Mario themed, it has to feel Paper Mario themed. I accomplished the Paper Mario aesthetic by putting in this spiky circle border around the screen. I kind of find my usage of this ironic because this idea came from Sticker Star, my least-favorite entry in the franchise (I haven't played Color Splash or The Origami King because of this game). The reason I included it despite my dislike of the game is that it just looked right to me. In order to create the border, I took a stock image of a spiky circle and a stock image of a blue polka dot pattern. First, I pasted the circle onto the image, and used the select tool to erase the shape, leaving only the border. Second, I took the polka dot pattern, used the select tool to select the negative space of the circle, and used the selected area to erase the pattern in the selected area. I noticed that the lines aren't perfectly straight, but I think it plays into the idea that this border is made of paper like everything else, which I emphasized by putting in a drop shadow (it's most noticeable on top). Speaking of things being made of paper, I wanted to emphasize the fact that the characters are 2D by having them layered above the border, and by including a shadow on the border. I created the shadow by making a merged copy of the characters (it's a function that allows me to copy every visible layer and paste them all into one merged layer), coloring it in completely black, putting the shadow in a good position, and use the select tool to select the negative space in the circle and deleting any part of the shadow in that area. Lastly, when it comes to the background inside the border, I decided to take the background from the title screen of The Thousand-Year Door. I went with for the background because 1) TTYD is my favorite game in the franchise, 2) the backgrounds of Paper Mario 64 are too pixelated or distorted to use, and 3) it wouldn't make much sense to use a background from a post-TTYD game.

Hope you like my love letter to the first two Paper Mario games. Hopefully, one of these days, we'll get an entry in the franchise that will go back to its original roots, as it was those mechanics that attracted players to the games in the first place, and maybe feature more partners to join alongside Mario.