| FIERY
MARIO
PROJECT #443 "Look, a Fire Flower! It's magic! If you can reach it, you can become a Super Mario, and get special firepower that can destroy King Koopa's evil helpers!" Preamble: One of the powers for Mario introduced in the original Super Mario Bros. game for NES, which would quickly become a staple of the series, is the ability to shoot fireballs at his enemies after acquiring a Fire Flower. (Prior to this game, I grew up on Donkey Kong where he went around smashing things with a hammer. I leave it to you to decide whether setting things on fire instead is more appropriate imitatable behavior for kids to emulate than bashing things with a large mallet.) Doing a color palate swap was a fairly clever way of demonstrating Mario (or Luigi) gaining his newfound powers without having to design an entirely new game sprite. There have been lots of different power-ups for Mario in subsequent games, many of them eminently more useful (like pretty much any of the ones that give him the ability to fly), but there was a time, back in the day, when the Fire Flower was the best you could get—not just the only thing left in your bag of goodies once you used up all your good stuff or a temporary item that disappeared like a Starman. This project is my tribute, then, to what was once the ultimate power-up: Fiery Mario. Construction: I made this from one of the spare Mario figures I had left over from a Wendy's kids meal promotion. (They're many years old now, but that just goes to show you that I tend to plan my projects well in advance.) I decided to make a minor modification to this project and have him launching a fireball from his fingertip. The fireball and index finger are one piece, originally the tip of the tail of a Charizard figurine from Pokémon that I've been holding onto for a project like this. I did this project at the same time as my oldskool Super Mario repaint so I could use the same batch of paint. Comments: I actually got into a big debate with my preteen kids the other day over whether Mario actually eats the Super Mushrooms and Fire Flowers and such, or whether he merely touches them. I tend to think he consumes them, personally, which would be consistent with the EAT ME and DRINK ME containers from Alice in Wonderland (which is almost certainly the inspiration for Mario's powers—the original size-changing mushrooms). I guess if you go strictly by what we see in the games, it's neither—he just runs into them at full speed and they promptly vanish from existance. (This is, of course, completely normal behavior for the flora and fungi in the Mushroom Kingdom.) |
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This Page Created 11/11/2009
Last Update: 6/25/2010
©2010 Inspiration Studios
Super Mario Bros. and all related characters and elements
are the property of Nintendo of America.
Pick your nose!
Its contents will help you on your way!
(Yes, I know that's from a different game. Shut up.)
