Artist's commentary
I made this mostly because I was getting upset with my inability to make aesthetic strokes on my tablet. The temporary solution, therefore, was to draw something grotesque where if the lines were slightly off it would work well with the picture.
The inspiration behind this was probably Osamu Tezuka's Saruta (You gotta love that nose). Plus, I wanted to picture what kind of character Mario would have been if his modern incarnation had roots in Japan of old (though strangely not Italy). Yet he looks more like a djinn than anything else, doesn't he?