how would one classify bowser's feet?

[Weasel]

Afaik it's because DragonFreak kept referring to them as paws so we had to come here to Marioverse to put it to the test with the proper authorities

...Deviantart?

 

[Anton]

Gamefaqs had a lot of threads in the subject but weren't very informative

 

[Zae]

kinda look like pads tbh.

 

[Mister Wu]

What, a thread on Bowser's feet?! And I didn't post on it until now?!?!?!?!?!?!
Ok, my 2 cents on the matter

Do members of Bowser's species have soft pads under their feet?

This was actually answered with a recent artwork of Mario Kart 8 featuring the Koopalings:

If you zoom on Larry's feet, you'll see that the pads don't have the scales that the rest of the body has, they are indeed soft pads.

So, are Bowser's feet like human feet?

Not really, they have pads and claws.

So, should the paws term be used?

Well, I think the "hind paws" term might be used, but it's quite verbose. Most importantly, in Biology different terms are often used to distinguish the front paws from the hind paws of a quadruped: manus and pes. These Latin terms mean literally "hand" and "foot", so ultimately, using hand and foot even in relation to quadrupeds' paws is something that is indeed being done, although in another language. At this point, I consider it acceptable to use "hands" and "feet" to refer to Bowser's front and hind paws, respectively. I guess it is simpler and less confusing than "mani" and "pedes", or their singular form "manus" and"pes", which are the terms that we should probably use if we wanted to be "encyclopedic" (although we can still use them if you want ).

 

[Anton]

paging mister wu

http://www.suppermariobroth.com/post/162778842585/inspecting-the-footprints-that-different

 

[BBQ Turtle]

I say feet. I think claws only really applies to the white parts at the end, which don't really make up more than 15% of them. Personally, I associate paws with mammals, whereas Bowser seems reptilian, so I think feet applies best. You don't really tend to talk about a turtle's paws, you tend to go feet. Also, in Super Mario Odyssey, Bowser wears shoes, something you tend to associate more with feet. And with the soft pads, well you have no way of telling, unless someone has a tame Bowser somewhere whose feet they can poke. You can't tell by the way he stands either, because they don't stick out from the feet as you would expect pads to, I really think they are just a different colour area of scales. I've just been staring at my Mario Kart calendar as it's the Koopalings this month and there are definitely scales on those feet. In regards to Meowser, Mario and friends all gain special Cat gloves, which differ from your bog standard ones. I think a similar thing works with Meowser. He gains more pads them too, and I'll also add that the Cat gloves have pads on them too, whereas normal ones don't.

 

[Specific Neptune]

i'm the same species as bowser and we prefer to call them "leg hands" if you don't mind

 

[Mister Wu]

paging mister wu

http://www.suppermariobroth.com/post/162778842585/inspecting-the-footprints-that-different

The best part is that I actually uploaded the picture on the wiki, used it exclusively as a reference to show that Morton had a different color of the pads in the past, and the guy still managed to find it and post it on Supper Mario Broth...

I really think they are just a different colour area of scales. I've just been staring at my Mario Kart calendar as it's the Koopalings this month and there are definitely scales on those feet.

I suggest you to look at the higher res artwork above (click on it to see it at full resolution) or on the wiki, you'll see that while Larry's feet have indeed scales on the yellow part, they end right where the pads begin, said pads have a different, softer appearance, without scales at all. If you need a more precise description, tell me and I'll upload the zoomed in part so I can better describe the details to you!

 

[BBQ Turtle]

Larry's feet have indeed scales on the yellow part, they end right where the pads begin, said pads have a different, softer appearance, without scales at all.

Hmm, to me it looks like a finer type of scale texture. It appears like that on Lemmy's feet too. In fact, lots of the artworks seem to me that it's a finer scale texture, it's different to the presumably soft part around their mouths.

 

[Mister Wu]

Ya leave me no choice...

Now, thanks to Shokora who pointed me this even higher res version of MK8 artwork, we can clarify some points:

First of all, is the pad actually flat or not?

Let's look at Larry's foot (yep, LB, after this picture the thread is beyond the point of no return):

BBQTurtle saw this point right: the foot is not flat, there are some corrugations, but are they softer than the corrugations on the face?

the higher res allows us to see that indeed the face has very fine corrugations which make it pretty rough, likely not softer to the touch than the pad, actually we can even see some of the scales of the green part of the face, again with a pretty fine texture, I'd say on the level of the yellow part in terms of corrugations, just less deep.

And what about Lemmy?

Well, well, here the depth of field effect doesn't help at all: the pad looks perfectly flat, while the face does have its rough look and the rest of the body is scaley as well (that shell, though...), I think it would be very unfair to base our judgement on this picture, as it would be biased toward my point of view of the pad not being scaley.




So, as a conclusion, I would consider the corrugations on the pads as fat creases, since they are really soft compared to the corrugations on the rest of the body, but feel free to consider them scales if you prefer to do so, anyway based on this picture I'd consider the pads one of the softest-to-the-touch surface parts of the body, possibly only behind the hair and the eyes.

P.S.: I'm not considering other artwork, as even the SSB4 artwork didn't have scales, rather suggesting that the pads' corrugations have nothing to do with the scales on the body, I think it's better to see artwork that features scales so a fairer comparison is possible:

 

[Czario]

Congratulations, Mister Wu. You just won the Ultimate Mario Nerd Award.

 

[BBQ Turtle]

Saying that though, the Morton, Iggy and Larry ones make it seem more like those parts are scalier! THIS IS SO CONFUSING IT ALL SEEMS TO CHANGE FROM GAME TO GAME! I'm not sure if that's down to the style of rendering though.

I'm kind of surprised that we only mentioned Bowser Jr. in passing so far, but really his feet seem more scaly than the rest of him. Saying that these aren't brand new, but they're his most recent two with his feet visible.

As for the Mario Kart 8 Koopalings picture, I'm not sure if that can be called 100% reliable as they did get the colour of Morton's Standard ATV wrong... just saying.

 

[Anton]

we'll just need to wait for more high res images from Odyssey

 

[BBQ Turtle]

we'll just need to wait for more high res images from Odyssey

Unfortunately, slight problem with that:

(i.e., Bowser's wearing shoes)

 

[Mister Wu]

Saying that though, the Morton, Iggy and Larry ones make it seem more like those parts are scalier! THIS IS SO CONFUSING IT ALL SEEMS TO CHANGE FROM GAME TO GAME! I'm not sure if that's down to the style of rendering though.

I'm kind of surprised that we only mentioned Bowser Jr. in passing so far, but really his feet seem more scaly than the rest of him. Saying that these aren't brand new, but they're his most recent two with his feet visible.

I already told you about that: if the scales are completely missing - and in these artwork images they are - yet the corrugations are still visible, what is more likely: that the artists only added scales to the feet or that those are not scales?

As for the Mario Kart 8 Koopalings picture, I'm not sure if that can be called 100% reliable as they did get the colour of Morton's Standard ATV wrong... just saying.

That picture is used in the main menu of both Mario Kart 8 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I don't know if we can really consider it so unreliable.

For the record, the same I noted in that picture can be seen here:

The pads were drawn at the time as completely flat pads, likely by Kotabe and Tezuka who worked on both the Koopalings and Bowser's redesign:

you can see that in the artwork, Bowser's scales were drawn, but not in the pads, this is oddly true even in the most recent hand-drawn artwork:

But in my opinion this is becoming a bit unnecessary, as I already told you this:

So, as a conclusion, I would consider the corrugations on the pads as fat creases, since they are really soft compared to the corrugations on the rest of the body, but feel free to consider them scales if you prefer to do so

Just like with Iggy's blue circles, I would hardly be surprised if currently at Nintendo there isn't a consensus as what the pads are supposed to be, still you can see that they have preferred distinguishing them from the body's scales, since the pads are a part that stands out and are likely an important source of cuteness - kawaii -, an important factor in Japan.

 

[Anton]

we'll just need to wait for more high res images from Odyssey

Unfortunately, slight problem with that:

(i.e., Bowser's wearing shoes)

let bowser take his shoes off ️