June Toons 2025 #8: Pipe Dream

Martin · 5 days (9:16 PM · Jun 8, 2025)
A cartoon illustration of Super Mario plunging his arm into a pipe, and the arm coming out of a pipe in the background holding an uprooted Piranha Plant. Mario is drawn with his hat pulled down over his eyes, and he has his mouth open, yelling. He is wearing his traditional outfit of red hat, red shirt, and blue overalls. The Piranha Plant looks as if it is gasping, with small globs of spit flying out of its mouth. Its roots are visible at the bottom. The pipe that Mario's arm is traveling through is green, and there is another brown pipe end in the distance, above Mario. The entire piece is shaded with large areas of black and hashed, contoured lines for shading, almost like a wood-cut print. The background is a muted teal, with a splotch of black spray paint behind Mario and gold spray paint behind the Piranha Plant.

Today's June Toons cartoon is a drawing of Mario sticking his hand through a long pipe and grabbing a Piranha Plant on the other end.

I had this idea a few days ago but needed time to think about how the image should be composed, and what style I wanted to draw it in. In the end, I decided to do something like a wood-cut print, with heavy blacks and a lot of texture. I also liked the idea of making Mario not look quite like he normally does. The background is the only thing I'm a little unsure of, but I think it turned out okay.

This was created in Procreate with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, using the Procreate Pencil brush for sketching, the Syrup brush for linework, the Soft air brush for a tiny bit of shading, and the Fat Nozzle spray paint brush for background texture.

If you'd like to see how I drew this one, you can watch the time-lapse below:

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