Mario vs. Godzilla

"What should we do today?"

"Mario."

"We've already done Mario," I reminded him. I was thinking of this closeup of Mario we did back in September.

"I mean Mario vs. Godzilla," he clarified. He was referring to a YouTube video he's been watching. In it, Mario fights Godzilla in short clips of the two fighters squaring off with silly sound effects interspersed throughout.

"So you want to pause the video and I'll draw that?"

"Yeah, exactly."

We played the video and he picked a still where Mario's face is shown half burned due to a shot from Godzilla's blue fire blast. I didn't want to do that and didn't think the burn would look like a burn when I drew it. "Instead, I'll do Mario with a fireball," I told him. It was a still from a few frames earlier.

He reluctantly agreed.

When I was done, he remarked, "Godzilla's so big and Mario's so small!" He took a moment to take it all in. "You really couldn't make that look like the real thing, so you just did it like that?" he asked critically. He pointed to Mario's face.

"It looks pretty close," I defended. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant, so I showed him the original. I thought it had turned out okay.

"Yeah, but there he looks mad. Here he's just eh."

I ignored the comment. Without any scenery, the snapshot feels a little empty, although, that's exactly how Mario and Godzilla look in the video still on a white background.

"Do you want to write your name and stuff?" I asked him. He took the Sharpie and added just his letters all about. To my surprise he didn't add any of his own embellishments to the scene. This was one time I wish he had.