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Description
This may or may not become a series of pictures, but the main concept for me is to make Mario's SMB sprites but in the Yoichi Kotabe shaded 2D style. This one is my interpretation of how Mario's small idle sprite would look, which is why I made him so small and stubby.

This is a style I've always admired and until recently, I didn't know the artist responsible for the style, so it came as a HUGE surprise to me that there have actually been TWO artists making artwork for Nintendo in this style:

Yoichi Kotabe was the redesigner of Miyamoto's original Mario design and from there, he became the main 2D Mario artwork designer until 2007, when he left Nintendo. But an almost perfect replacement has taken the torch and was obviously inspired by Kotabe's style. His name is Shigehisa Nakaue, and he's responsible for Mario's 2D artwork for after 2007.

In my opinion, he deserves to be celebrated as much as Kotabe, if for nothing else than the fact that he took over the role nearly flawlessly.

Description
This may or may not become a series of pictures, but the main concept for me is to make Mario's SMB sprites but in the Yoichi Kotabe shaded 2D style. This one is my interpretation of how Mario's small idle sprite would look, which is why I made him so small and stubby.

This is a style I've always admired and until recently, I didn't know the artist responsible for the style, so it came as a HUGE surprise to me that there have actually been TWO artists making artwork for Nintendo in this style:

Yoichi Kotabe was the redesigner of Miyamoto's original Mario design and from there, he became the main 2D Mario artwork designer until 2007, when he left Nintendo. But an almost perfect replacement has taken the torch and was obviously inspired by Kotabe's style. His name is Shigehisa Nakaue, and he's responsible for Mario's 2D artwork for after 2007.

In my opinion, he deserves to be celebrated as much as Kotabe, if for nothing else than the fact that he took over the role nearly flawlessly.