Mario and Princess Peach make such an adorable couple. Although a plumber by profession, Mario fits the description of a noble knight always willing to lay down his life for the rescue of his cherished princess. I wanted to illustrate a tranquil scene showing Mario's kindness by holding an umbrella over Peach, keeping her dry from the rain in a mushroom forest.

The Sketch

I illustrated this one years ago before I exclusively began using Wacom's Mobilestudio Pro. That's the reason that this sketch is actually in pencil on paper, the old fashion way. After scanning my drawing into Adobe Photoshop I did adjust some of the drawing, re-positioning Peach's dress and the couple's size.

The Flat Colors

I did not create a black and white line art for this drawing. The reason for this is because I was going to color this using a different style, one without character lines. To accomplish this, I simply made shapes using the polygon lasso tool and filled them in with solid color. All of this is on a separate layer over the top of my sketch. I did add a gradient in the background where the mushroom forest is more dense and dark.

The Finished Illustration

Instead of using Adobe Photoshop to finish this one, I chose to add the shadows and highlights using Corel Painter Essentials. I was impressed with their airbrush tool, which is what I used to make these characters look like this, a departure from my normal coloring style. I did finished with Photoshop to add some light shines and give the rain an overlay layer mask effect. At this time, I was using a Wacom Bamboo Fun drawing tablet, the small one.