The Dame (Birdo) Artwork/Lore
LORE: Birdo is the right hand of the Eight Bit Cartel's leader, Don Wart. More often than not, when the Don needs something done or something said, he sends her in his stead. She was originally brought on along with her two siblings, and they assisted in the conquering of the dimension known as Subcon so that they could use it as a base of operations. However, when Wart's dealings became increasingly immoral, and Bowser began terrorizing their home kingdom with the anomalies he summoned, her sisters decided to leave and pursue their own interests. She wanted to go with them, but she felt that she had put far too much work into acquiring her position to abandon it. So she remained, gaining the favor she now has with the Don as his most loyal, and most cunning enforcer.
Eventually things fell apart when the anomalies finally invaded Subcon as well, and as a result Birdo and her allies were forced to make a hasty escape from the realm. As luck would have it, they ended up in Brooklyn, and a short while later, Wart, realizing that the anomalies had to be dealt with before business could resume, agreed to an uneasy alliance with the local Vanquish Twins. Birdo was content with the new arrangement, and continues to aid in the hunting of anomalies. She is very closed off from most individuals, especially the Vanquish twins- though she would eventually find an unlikely friend in Yoshi. Key word being eventually. At first his cheery attitude was a source of constant irritation for her. But in time they proved to make quite the team, and she warmed up to his antics.
DESIGN STUFF: Birdo's design is the one I'm most satisfied with at the moment, so it's the one I decided to work with first! I gave her a similar posture to Yoshi to match their mainline counterparts, though she has a slightly more upright and "civilized" way of carrying herself. For the sake of the story and design, I went with the green sprite from SMB2 as the base colors, and then added the warm colors on her bow-shaped head plates and thagomiser to contrast! As an added detail, her plates convey emotion- when frustrated or preparing to shoot a fireball they glow warmer colors, and on the rare occasion she's sad they darken. In order to make her more expressive, she has a more typical mouth on the end of her snout, though it takes on the iconic shape when she shoots her fireballs.
I might do dedicated moveset concepts later down the line, but at least for now I imagine she would be be a relatively fast character with decent health. Up close, she has a basic melee attack where she uses her thagomiser to swiftly strike the anomaly. From a distance, since she is the green brido, she can shoot fireballs instead of eggs (which helps differentiate her from Yoshi gameplay wise). She would probably have the typical birdo triple shot which would be fast but do less damage, as well as a larger charged shot which would be significantly more powerful! Thanks to the few who read all that! Everything is subject to change, but I look Forward to continuing to work with these characters in the future! Any thoughts or critiques are much appreciated!