Pinned thread Art Style analysis in Spongebob and various other shows

[PizzaApple]

Why do you think season 2-3 don't have the gray undertone like post movie has?

Maybe Rough Draft just wanted to modernize the show a bit? I mean the grayness does make the episodes look a little brighter. But it also could have been unintentional. We can't know for sure.

 

[Cloudy Cloud]

in late season 4 and season 5 spongebob looks like a cheese block, like his colors are pretty bright

 

[PizzaApple]

SpongeBob's personality in season 2 is the perfect combination of the childish spongebob in season 1 and the mature spongebob in season 3

Early Season 2 episodes, like Your Shoe's Untied or Something Smells, just feel straight from Season 1, in the audio, writing, personalities, and even the art style. It's like if late into Season 1 they decided to use digital ink and paint.

 

[PizzaApple]

Remember when I said in Skill Crane in this shot it looked like Your Shoe's Untied SpongeBob and Season 6 Squidward travelled in time to meet each other?

What are some other shots where the characters look like they time-travelled from another season? (that is, shots with two characters or more where they look like they're from totally different seasons)

 

[Cloudy Cloud]

Remember when I said in Skill Crane in this shot it looked like Your Shoe's Untied SpongeBob and Season 6 Squidward travelled in time to meet each other?
View attachment 17941
What are some other shots where the characters look like they time-travelled from another season? (that is, shots with two characters or more where they look like they're from totally different seasons)

there is the time in good neighbors where squid is sticking his head out of the window and spongebob looks like his pre-movie design

 

[Cloudy Cloud]

Early Season 2 episodes, like Your Shoe's Untied or Something Smells, just feel straight from Season 1, in the audio, writing, personalities, and even the art style. It's like if late into Season 1 they decided to use digital ink and paint.

SpongeBob's early season 2 design looks identical to his season 1 design

 

[Cloudy Cloud]

Remember when I said in Skill Crane in this shot it looked like Your Shoe's Untied SpongeBob and Season 6 Squidward travelled in time to meet each other?

season 6 squidward would love season 2 spongebob

 

[PizzaApple]

there is the time in good neighbors where squid is sticking his head out of the window and spongebob looks like his pre-movie design

Oh yeah I remember that one!

We also have the time where Season 2-3 noodlebob SpongeBob and Patrick met a Dunces and Dragons-looking fish in The Lost Mattress.

 

[PizzaApple]

season 6 squidward would love season 2 spongebob

Now that I think of it, Squidward doesn't really get that annoyed at SpongeBob in Skill Crane. But he's always getting annoyed in episodes like Squid's Visit and Boating Buddies (and rightfully so, SpongeBob is literally insane in those episodes.).

 

[Original Raw and Uncut]

Early Season 2 episodes, like Your Shoe's Untied or Something Smells, just feel straight from Season 1, in the audio, writing, personalities, and even the art style. It's like if late into Season 1 they decided to use digital ink and paint.

I wonder why late season 2 has more coloring issues than early season 2 does. You’d think they’d be struggling more at the beginning of the transition.

 

[PizzaApple]

I wonder why late season 2 has more coloring issues than early season 2 does. You’d think they’d be struggling more at the beginning of the transition.

I feel like the coloring issues were distributed pretty evenly throughout the season. Squid's Day Off, Something Smells, Bossy Boots, Big Pink Loser, Bubble Buddy, Dying for Pie, Grandma's Kisses, Prehibernation Week, Life of Crime, Christmas Who?, Survival of the Idiots, No Free Rides, and I'm Your Biggest Fanatic all have palebob variant prints.

None of the pre-movie episodes have palebob for the original prints. But a lot of early Season 4 episodes do; Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI literally doesn't have a non-palebob print, and the episode is a mix of palebob and non-palebob.

 

[Original Raw and Uncut]

None of the pre-movie episodes have palebob for the original prints.

They were likely transferring episodes using either coaxial cables or composite. I think they switched to component when they were wrapping up production on The Bully/Just One Bite, that was the first episode to not have dot crawl.

The remastered episodes are probably raw studio prints taken from old files from the servers at rough draft studios.

Sometimes when transferring episodes through inferior formats, you get dot crawl as well as poor color calibration.

Any post movie episode with dot crawl is a rotten copy or an error that occurred during the editing process in the final mixing.

 

[PizzaApple]

The remastered episodes are probably raw studio prints taken from old files from the servers at rough draft studios.

Wow, I can't believe they managed to find those old files!

 

[Original Raw and Uncut]

Wow, I can't believe they managed to find those old files!

Either that or they retraced each frame

 

[PizzaApple]

Either that or they retraced each frame

I feel like another possibility is they just automatically upscaled it. Even some TVs have an automatic upscaler.

 

[Original Raw and Uncut]

Transit markerbob assets in an early 00's Mix it Up promo from Nick:

 

[Mr. What Zit Tooya]

Do you think early Season 4 looks like Catscratch?
View attachment 17895

Catscratch's animation reminds me more of Family Proud, by the way it's nice that someone mentioned Catscratch, that show could have been Spongebob's second buddie if it hadn't been canceled and FOP hadn't been renewed

 

[Mr. What Zit Tooya]

S4 face

 

[Original Raw and Uncut]

Because Hello Bikini Bottom! was shipped to Korea so late, you could tell that they cropped some scenes to 4:3 on purpose due to the fact that it was produced alongside some HD episodes:



The cinematography is really bad in some parts of the episodes too:





Also the final instance of palebob in Spongebob history, due to it being the final SD episode to be shipped to Rough Draft Studios:



Again, very bad cinematography in this shot, possibly due to them cropping the episode to 4:3 on purpose to keep it consistent with the rest of season 8.

 

[PizzaApple]

Because Hello Bikini Bottom! was shipped to Korea so late, you could tell that they cropped some scenes to 4:3 on purpose due to the fact that it was produced alongside some HD episodes:

View attachment 17945

The cinematography is really bad in some parts of the episodes too:

View attachment 17946

View attachment 17947

Also the final instance of palebob in Spongebob history, due to it being the final SD episode to be shipped to Rough Draft Studios:

View attachment 17948

Again, very bad cinematography in this shot, possibly due to them cropping the episode to 4:3 on purpose to keep it consistent with the rest of season 8.

This might sound kinda dumb but sometimes bad cinematography has its charm because it makes everything feel more airy and the environment look bigger.