Turtwig as a Troopea Sprite

By TURTWIG VON KOOPA - Turtpea? Troowig? Koopea? We need a name for this...

For those wondering, Ludwig is... or was doing alright after the assassination attempt on him from four months ago. He has been going through some physical therapy to work that out, but a lot of his progress seemed to be reverted upon hearing that ŌKAMI will be getting a sequel (and apparently Ōkamiden doesn't exist?) because Ludwig went into a total state of shock. Given his present vegetative condition, Ludwig's global set of minions have decided to pitch in and send him a nice vegetable-related birthday present. The finest artists in Koopa Kingdom and beyond the dimensions have produced this custom sprite:

You may be familiar with the quadruped Troopea from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, native to the Beanbean Kingdom. These are relatives of Koopa Troopas from Koopa Kingdom. They may look like Koopas... but they have sprouts growing from their heads. You may also be familiar with the Pokémon called Turtwig, which is the quadruped Tiny Leaf Pokémon that also has a sprout growing from its head. Turtwig are commonly seen as “first partner Pokémon” (or starter Pokémon) in the Sinnoh region. Troopea and Turtwig are conceptually similar. In the past, others have noted that Troopea is like a “proto Turtwig”, and some have even requested a custom sprite merging the two, with one guy saying he's working on it back in 2008. But no such sprite was ever actually made, to Ludwig's disappointment. ...Until now!

Ludwig has quite a bit of affection for Turtwig in particular, and Grass types in general, and Troopea is basically a Grass-type Koopa Troopa from his own planet. Given the currency situation, Ludwig doesn't actually get to peacefully visit the Beanbean Kingdom all that much, but he likes Troopeas in theory and is as fascinated by them as someone who doesn't know biology can be.


Sprites from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga have been used by tens of thousands of sprite comics and flash games since 2003, and Ludwig was also very thankful for AlphaDream for finally giving him an on-model full body sprite in that game. The 2017 remake (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions) happened to make Troopeas bipedal for some reason, and that would be incompatible with working with Turtwig. (It'd be very compatible with GAME FREAK's Grass-related later ideas, though.) It made the most sense to go with this idea for a gift given Ludwig's publicly stated affinity. The only other sprout-Koopa combo was a scene in Super Paper Mario where King Bowser could wear a Floro Sprout on his head, but in that scenario, having a sprout was portrayed as a mind-controlling detriment.

Having the whole article be dedicated to a 33x33 pixel image is a bit awkward, so here is another picture with the sprite enlarged with nearest neighbor setting.

Click on the image for the original resolution of it.
This goes for all KoopaTV images, but this one literally has image dimensions written on it.

This was more than just a palette swap of Troopea with Turtwig's colour scheme; the project was to take Troopea and “Turtwiggify” it. Some custom things happened, like adding Turtwig's tail. Troopeas don't seem to have tails, but Turtwig has a short stubby tail visible from its back sprites. You don't see Turtwig's tail on its front sprites because of the angling it has, but Troopea has a different angle than Turtwig's front sprites, so in this angle, the tail should be visible. Additional work was done with representing Turtwig's famous twig (whereas Troopea apparently has its sprout right out of its eyeballs) as well as adjusting the shell to match Turtwig's shell better, which also exposed the underbelly a bit more.

Ludwig might use this exact .png as a profile pic elsewhere.

Troopea sprite ripped by Ridge Troopa on The Spriters Resource. The Turtwig sprite used for colour, shading, and design reference was ripped by Jefelin on The Spriters Resource. The actual custom sprite was a bit of a collaborative effort, but the end result is KoopaTV's property and you should ask KoopaTV for permission to use it in the comments section (and then you will give credit to KoopaTV and link to this article). Ludwig often struggles to believe his birthdays can be happy, but you can try to change his mind in the comments section below. If you feed him a Leppa Berry, he at least won't be stuck only using Struggle.


You may remember Turtwig Von Koopa from this article... though he didn't appear to be a different entity from Ludwig at that time...?