Bowser's Description

Last Updated: March 6th, 2007


So how would you be able to describe what Bowser looks like to somebody that has never heard of or seen him before? Here is a general description of Bowser's appearance and characteristics:

The King of the Koopas, Bowser Koopa, appears as a large, bipedal creature with a mix of turtle, dragon, and dinosaur elements. Bowser has orange scales all over his body except for his head, which is green; his snout, which is yellow-beige; and his stomach, which is light-yellow. He has red hair and two sharp horns on top his head. Bowser has a large spiked turtle shell on his back and two more spikes on his orange tail. He wears sharp-studded, metal cuffs around his arms, wrists, and neck. Adding to Bowser's defense is his ability to breathe fire along with sharp white claws and teeth.




Bowser MP8



Now that was just the short description! Here is an in-depth, low-level, detailed analysis of what Bowser's unique, original, and creative character design looks like; starting from the top down:

Bowser's unique head shape can be divided into two distinct sections due to the entire lower-anterior part of his face, starting from slightly below his eyes, protruding away from his head and being a different colour. Bowser's cheeks, nostrils, and jaws all bulge outwards forming a short, smooth, buff-coloured snout. This yellow-beige snout takes up nearly 70% of his entire head. Bowser neck and the rest of his head including his forehead, the area around his eyes, his scalp, his temples, and the back of his head, are covered with small green scales.

Bowser has a mane of red, fire-like hair spread neatly over the top and back of his head. Also on top of his head are two sharp, curved, bull-like horns which are light-golden in colour. Bowser eyes have a white base with round, red irises. Above his eyes are thick, bushy eyebrows, similar in colour and style to his hair. Between Bowser's eyebrows at the lower-most part of his forehead appears to be a round bump, perhaps due to his frequent intimidating frowns and glares. His eyes also appear slightly curved as a result of such facial expressions. In summary, Bowser has quite an interesting looking face indeed.

Although the tip of Bowser's snout near his nostrils seems to round out and bulge away and up a tiny bit, Bowser is regarded as having only nostrils, and no nose. Bowser does not appear to have any visible earholes, but his ability to hear means they could be just hard to detect as most reptile's earholes are. Bowser has rows of sharp, white, alligator-like teeth which he can make a very intimidating grin with. Bowser has the ability to breath fire from his mouth either flamethrower-style or as fireball projectiles.


Bowser Select Screen

The rest of Bowser's body is covered in orange scales, except for the soles of his feet and his stomach. Bowser is a heavily built powerhouse with huge, tree-trunk like arms and thick legs. Basically, he looks strong and powerful enough to be able to stop a tank by just standing his ground.

Bowser underbelly appears soft and rippled and is light-yellow in colour. He has a thumb and three fingers at the end of each large hand, each with a sharp white claw on the end. Bowser's feet are broad and thick for balance and to support his large, heavy body. He has three short stubby toes, which don't spread apart too far, along with claws on each one. Each sole of Bowser's two feet has a soft, circular, light-yellow pad. Bowser also has a thick tail, with two large spikes on the end, which are similar in colour to his horns.

Bowser has a huge, thick, green, spiked turtle shell on his back with a detailed hexagonal pattern to it and a thick white border all around. Bowser has thirteen large sharp spikes total on his backshell which are spaced apart evenly and are similar in colour to his horns. It is not known whether Bowser's shell is permanently attached to his back, or if he can take it off from time to time. Lasty, clamped around Bowser's neck, biceps, and wrists are dark-grey, spikey-studded metal cuffs; most likely to show off his toughness or for a unique Koopa style.


Bowser Flex

In conclusion, Bowser is a large, bipedal creature with a clever mix of tortoise, dragon, and dinosaur characteristics. I would conclude that Bowser is about 60% turtle, 20% dragon, and 20% dinosaur. I say he looks mostly turtle because of the huge turtle shell on his back, his powerful but stumpy looking limbs and tail, and his soft, rippled, turtle-like tummy. Bowser does not have wings or a crested head that would make him lean more towards draconic, but he does breath fire and have sharp curved horns. To me, Bowser appears dinosaur-like in the fact that he has spikes on the end of his tail, similar to a Stegosaurus, and his face certainly doesn't look like a turtle-like face.

All in all, Bowser is an original and unique looking creature indeed! A big spikey-shelled fire-breathing turtledragonsaur wearing spiked metal cuffs... now how cool is that!?

Many that know me notice that I am very detailed, and I'm sure reading my low-level description of Bowser Koopa, you would probably assume this as well. I often wonder though what someone would come up if they never had a visual aid of Bowser's look before and only had to go by my details! I bet if they were to draw what they formulated by my description it would probably look something like this:


Scary Bowser

Who knows...