Visual Analysis Blog #2 Anthony Pompilii

• 

SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the most popular kid shows of all time and has impacted the lives of many people throughout the past two decades. Throughout my child hood, I grew up watching the television show SpongeBob SquarePants. I remember coming home everyday after school and watching it, as well as on the weekends. I would watch episodes over and over again. When they decided to make the first SpongeBob movie, I was very excited. When the movie finally came out, I watched that many times over too. I also had a lot of SpongeBob apparel. Needless to say, SpongeBob played a massive roll in my life. However, One thing I never noticed through my years of watching the show was that, there were many significant changes that took place to SpongeBob himself. As we can see in the two side by side pictures above, the SpongeBob in 1999, and the SpongeBob in 2019 look totally different from each other. SpongeBob’s earliest version was the picture to the left, and the picture to the right is the latest version. There were many changes that took place to SpongeBob in many different areas. One of the main changes made to SpongeBob was the difference in animation. In the picture to the left in 1999, SpongeBob was produced with cel animation. In 2019 SpongeBob was also produced with cel animation, however this time, the inking and painting of SpongeBob was done on the computer. This then led to many other smaller changes. One major difference in these pictures is proportion. Proportion plays a big factor in what makes these two SpongeBob’s different. As we can see in the picture to the left, SpongeBob’s head is much bigger than the rest of his body and it almost looks out of control. In the picture to the right however, this is a different case. We can see that SpongeBob’s head looks more like a solid square and is very nicely proportioned compared to the rest of his body. This also relates to unity. As we can see in the picture to the right, SpongeBob’s head and his pants are very evenly placed compared to the picture to the left. In the picture to the right, SpongeBob looks like a more unified square structure, compared to the first version of SpongeBob on the left. Not only does proportion play a role for SpongeBob’s head and pants, but it also plays a role in the smaller details. In the picture on the left, SpongeBob’s eyeballs in an unproportioned state. One is clearly bigger than the other. This changes however because in the picture to the right, we see SpongeBob’s eyes are more even with each other. We can also see this with his buck teeth. In the picture to the right, his teeth are much more even and more straight than the picture on the left. Another big change that took place to SpongeBob is the color of him. This is the one thing that many fans notice when watching different episodes throughout the years. Many fans actually did not like this change. In the picture on the left, SpongeBob is a very extreme yellow and it almost looks kind of dry. In the picture to the right, SpongeBob takes on this new brighter yellow. This yellow almost could pass for a lime green, making SpongeBob look like a highlighter. This contrast is a massive difference. This new color on the right also deals with emphasis. This brighter yellow, makes SpongeBob pop out at the audience more and it also catches the eye of the viewer immediately. SpongeBob’s transformation through the years, is very significant because he is an iconic character for many people all over the world. You could love or hate the changes made it SpongeBob, but the character overall, will live on forever!