Super Mario Bros Drawing Characters

Welcome to another step by step tutorial. This time, I am going to teach you how to draw Mario from the popular video game franchise – Super Mario. Portrayed as a short and chubby plumber, Mario is the eponymous protagonist of the Super Mario series. Since the franchise was launched, the character has been featured in over 200 video games. Here, I will teach you how to draw Mario in two different ways. We will first start by creating a dummy which will serve as a base for our final drawing. So let's get started.

Tutorial 1: How to Draw Mario's Face

For the first tutorial, we are going to focus solely on drawing Mario's face in the following 10 steps.

Step 1 – Drawing Half Face

First of all, we will start drawing the right half of our character's face. To do this, draw a diagonal curve line and join it to a short straight line.

Step 2 – Drawing the other half of the Face

Once you are done with one half of the face, proceed to draw the left half. Simply copy what you did on the right side to the left side.

Step 3- Drawing the Sideburns

The image from step two should look like a bowl, now use a horizontal curve line to join both sides of the face together to get a proper head shape. Next, draw short curve lines on the straight part of both faces to represent the sideburns.

Step 4- Drawing the Ears

Next, still using curve lines, draw the ears besides the sideburns. Use a concave curve line for the right ear and a convex curve line for the left.

Step 5- Drawing Mario's Cap

For the fifth step, we will draw Mario's cap. Draw a line following the shape of the top of the head then draw a semi-circle above it. The semi-circle should end at the top of the ears on both sides.

Step 6- Drawing the Facial Features 1

Once you have the outline of the face, you can then proceed to draw the facial features. We will draw the facial features in 3 steps. In this step, using 3 circles, draw an outline of the eyes and nose on the face as depicted in the image above. Draw a fourth circular shape on the cap which will represent the Super Mario logo as you will see in the steps to follow.

Step 7- Drawing the Facial Features 2

Next, draw an "M" inside the circle you drew on top of Mario's cap for the Super Mario Logo. For the eyes, draw two other circles within the big circle you drew to give an outline of the eyeballs. Then you should blacken the innermost circle representing the pupils, remember to leave a small white spot on the pupils to create an illusion of light reflection in our character's eyes.

Step 8- Drawing the Facial features 3

Simply draw a horizontal curve line under the nose with a much shorter one closely underneath it to represent the mouth. Pay attention to how the ears have been further detailed to make them look more realistic.

Step 9- Drawing the facial features 4

Now, it is time to draw the mustache and eyebrows on our character. Simply draw the shapes as illustrated above and blacken it. Ensure that the mustache goes around the lower part of the nose and that the mouth is not completely concealed beneath it.

Step 10- Painting the Colors

For the final step, pick out the colors you see on the image above and paint each area with solid colors. I recommend leaving the eyes and the background of the logo without color, using the white of the paper as their base color.

Tutorial 2: How to Draw Mario Full Body

For the second tutorial, we are going to take things a notch higher and go for the entire body. We will be drawing our character from a 3/4 angle, so let's begin.

Step 1- Drawing the Torso

To draw the torso, first of all, draw a circle. Now because of the perspective, you will be drawing from, one side of Mario's body, being his left, will be almighty concealed. That said, draw a line that will divide the torso into two vertical sides. The right side which is closer to the viewer should be bigger than the left.
Also, draw a horizontal curve line across the torso, this line will divide the torso into the upper torso being the rib cage and the lower torso representing the abdominal area. Remember to draw three ellipses on the torso – on top of the torso for the head and on the upper and lower right side for the right arm and leg respectively.

Step 2- Drawing the legs

You will draw both legs from two different perspectives, while the right leg is fully frontal, only the side view of the left leg is visible. As you can see in the image above Mario's legs are short so you can just draw a tube to represent the whole leg. However, remember to make the right leg slightly longer than the left because of the view. Draw ellipses halfway into the leg to represent the knees and a rectangular shape to represent the feet.

Step 3- Drawing the arms

While the right arm is raised, the left arm is placed on the hips and because of the 3/4 angle, it is barely visible from behind the torso. For the right arm, draw the shoulder as an egg-shaped sphere and the upper arm as a short tube. The forearm will be represented by a long and narrow cylindrical shape, about twice the length of the upper arm.
The right hand is positioned in such a way that just the index finger is raised while the other fingers and the thumb are all folded. Use curve lines and rectangles to draw the fingers and palms. Draw Mario's left arm as you can see in the image above, I recommend using simple geometric shapes to avoid complicating your drawing.

Step 4- Drawing the Head

Draw a sphere on the ellipse on top of the torso you drew in step one. Draw two lines across the face – horizontal and vertical curve lines. Then draw the ears at about the same height as the horizontal curve line.

Step 5- Drawing Mario's Features

Next, we will proceed to draw our character's features. Draw his cap and facial features like in the previous tutorial using circular images, ensure that the edges of his mustache are irregular and not smooth since it is hair. Draw a ring around his wrist to make it look like he is wearing gloves and then draw the overalls, his signature clothes, over his torso.

Step 6- Drawing the Final Lineart

This step is really simple, I recommend erasing out some of the lines on the dummy, like the outline for the shoulder and kneecaps, so they do not interfere with the final drawing. Blackened the pupils to make the eyes looks more natural and don't forget to draw the Super Mario logo on our character's cap.

Step 7- Painting the Colors

Pick out the colors as on the image above and paint each area with solid colors. As in the first tutorial, leave the eyes and the background of the logo without color, especially if you are working on a white paper or background.

Conclusion

That brings us to the end of our tutorial and I believe you have learned something about drawing this popular video game character. You can try to create your own style of Mario, not just the two styles I used above. The important thing is to follow my steps closely if you want to achieve good results.
If you are interested in more free step by step drawing tutorials similar to this one, feel free to visit the Drawing Tutorials section.
I hope this tutorial was useful to you. If you have any doubt or question please leave it on the comment section, this will encourage me to keep working in new tutorials and articles.

Artists: Mafer Baruta and Toni Justamante Jacobs

Summary

2 Ways to Draw Super Mario

Article Name

2 Ways to Draw Super Mario

Description

Welcome to another step by step tutorial. This time, I am going to teach you how to draw Mario from the popular video game franchise - Super Mario.

Author

Artists: Mafer Baruta and Toni Justamante Jacobs , Writer: Eseandre

Publisher Name

Improve Your Drawings

Publisher Logo

Improve Your Drawings

Toni Justamante Jacobs

About the author: Hi, I'm Toni Justamante Jacobs. I´m a professional Concept Artist and Illustrator with more than 10 years of experience in the industry. Some of my clients are Gameloft, Fantasy Flight Games, Kunlun Games and Games Workshop. Currently, I´m working at Socialpoint as an in-house Senior Concept Artist.