Concept Character Sketches

Spongebob

"Spongeboy", later known as Spongebob, of course. Note the "C" on his hat; early on, the Krusty Krab was spelled in the generic way - Crusty Crab. I also find it kind of ironic that fans complain about his "huge new cheeks" in the more recent seasons, but his cheeks in this early drawing are bigger than they've ever actually been in the animated show.


Patrick
Patrick is ... Patrick. I wonder why they got rid of his doorbell?

Squidward
Shorter and stockier than he ended up being, but even at this early stage he only had six limbs, despite the fact that he's an octopus. This decision was made to simplify things and make him easier to animate.


Mr Krabs
As mentioned above, note the way his name was originally spelled.



Mermaid Man
Pictured here with "Barnacle Bill", a character that was scrapped and replaced with Barnacle Boy.


And finally, a full cast drawing of the main characters.

"Spongeboy Ahoy!" Storyboards

It's difficult to know how to start a project like this; I have a seemingly neverending backlog of Spongebob "stuff" and I don't want to end up just posting it all at the same time. But I have to start somewhere, and where better to start than the beginning, with the images that gave this blog it's title?

These storyboard panels are from the Spongebob Squarepants pilot episode, "Help Wanted" (1997). Back then, Spongebob was known as Spongeboy, before his name had to be changed for legal reasons ("Spongeboy", it turned out, was already in use).