Mario Art: Where's It's Been.

This article actually took me a whole lot longer than I thought it was going to, so I've gone ahead and made it three parts, here's part one of this fun history lesson. Thank you for your patience.

Credits from most of this archived art goes to the Super Mario Wiki, Super Mario Broth, and VGArtandTidbits. Check them all out. With their hard work, most of this would be lost to time. 

Okay, here we go, before we get to talk about the future, I think it's best to start with the past. A history lesson for a lot of people who don't know this kind of stuff was something I thought of, recently.

When you think of Mario, what's the visual you first think of? Is it this? 

This? 

Or possibly, this?

Obviously, they're all Mario, but what a lot of people don't think about is how we got to this point, and I think it's best to start with where Mario started to star in his own franchise, the one, the only, Mario Bros. 

Hah. Not what you thought of, eh? 

Most people don't even know this one exists.

Fun fact: This is actually where Luigi got his start. This game pre dates the Arcade Mario Bros. game by a few months.

By that point, you can see the general core design of the brothers was starting to solidify.

Then, the actual main game comes out:

As you can see here, Mario and Luigi have their color differences, but they're more or less the same otherwise, given that Luigi was just created for the sole purpose of being a second player character. 

Then of, course, we get to:

What many consider to be the actual "true start" the greater Mario franchise as a whole. 

Mario got his iconic blue eyed design here. This key art was actually done by Miyamoto himself. 

This more of less set the tone for what would come in the future. Peach doesn't look anything like she would look like in her future appearances, but the general vibe is there. Bowser as well, he's even got yellow hair here, he would get darker hair and lighter skin as time would go along. Toad is more or less the same the same character we have today. 

Then, we finally get to where Mario finally comes into "focus", for lack of a butter term. 

Super Mario Bros. 3.

Mario would also sport his blue overalls here for the first time.

The legendary Yoichi Kotabe would be the man to refine and perfect the Mario designs. Having a very long and storied history in the Japanese animation history, he joined Nintendo in 1987 and he would give us the the absolutely sublime Mario designs we've enjoyed since then.

Luigi around this time would be become taller and slimmer than his older brother, which was actually an extremely smart change, considering how much different Mario and Luigi played compared to one another.

Very little has changed since he joined Nintendo, even after he left, future designers would emulate his work. 

Super Mario World would continue his direction, as well as spinoffs such as Super Mario Kart:

Super Mario World would introduce a new character that would join the fray forever more, and that would be the one and only, Yoshi:

Yoshi was a character conceptualized during the development of the original Super Mario Bros. and he would finally make his debut five years later. 

A lot of people wouldn't even notice this, but during the early days, Yoshi was much more Dinosaur-like. He was much more slouched over, his saddle was intended to be a shell, and he had much smaller arms, like a dinosaur. He also had much more chill, lax expression in most of the artwork. 

I gotta say, I much prefer this look. Yoshi was already cute enough, and they made him cuter for some reason.

Then, at long last make it to 1996, and Mario finally made the big jump to 3D. 

Despite how much changed in terms of art style, Super Mario 64 kept Mario's core design more or less the same. Yes, he's taller and much more expressive than his 2D days, but that's really it.

Peach and Toad more or less were finalized by that point too. Bowser on the other hand, started to stand more upright, and looked a lot more menacing. I highly approve of this change:

During the 1998 release of Yoshi's Story, the dinosaur got a massive redesign. He became much shorter, he started to stand up much more upright, and the cool, laid back appearance was replaced with a much cuter and joyful personality, alongside giving Yoshi a voice, ala Nintendo composer Yozumi Totaka. I was personally, never a big fan of this redesign. I was always more into the idea of Yoshi being more animal than human.

What's weird is that Nintendo would walk this back in future N64 games featuring the character, where he would go back to his usual design. Perhaps they weren't big on it either? 

From 1996 to 2001, Mario and the gang stayed exactly the same, design wise. From Mario Kart 64. Mario Golf and Tennis, to the Mario Parties, the gang stayed stayed consistent throughout the lifespan of the N64.

With technology, things change quickly, and before too long, the GameCube would arrive in 2001, and with it, lots of changes to the Mario cast started to happen.  Some of which, you may not have even noticed. 

That's where we end for part one. Part two is next. See you then.