playing with fire

I had an afternoon to myself and this has been an idea for a painting I've been toying with for a while, some Mario fan art if you will. I've been toying with new methods to my painting and I managed to do this entire thing in under 4 hours. Just building it up from the shadow on a low fill setting. Then touching up reflected light and the glow from the fire. The tricky part is getting a maniacal smirk on a character when you can't see his mouth.

Fire mario... Mario's darker side in white