A Tribute to Stephen Hillenburg (1961-2018) by korn2012NWO on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Hey everyone, I’m back! Since I decided to just keep this brief and cut to the chase so that this description doesn’t get tedious like my other artworks in the recent past, I’ve been dealing with both a YouTube hacker last summer, going to my second term at college when taking four courses this year as it got a bit difficult with having to balance my time management between my personal life and working on my huge amounts of college assignments from my courses, and then a few family outings but now that the fall semester is finally over before the spring semester begins next month and that I can take a winter vacation at home for once and so I decided to draw a tribute drawing for Stephen Hillenburg who was the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants after he unexpectedly passed away on November 26 from ALS at the age of 57 and that the first time that I’ve heard about this tragic news occurred two days after his passing when I was on my iPhone in bed looking up one of the latest Deviantart artworks from “joaoppereiraus” when suddenly I saw a tribute drawing of his with SpongeBob mourning over the loss of Stephen as I wasn’t prepared to hear about it since not only I was struggling with having to catch up on my assignments that week but this shocking discovery had occurred at the wrong time since it was late at night and I had to get some sleep without being late for college that day and I kinda wished that I had heard about his passing like during the weekend or something when it doesn’t seem so forced. So having to make this drawing for the last two days now was my only way to show any dedication to him (besides posting my feelings on Facebook about it) since not only he’s a professionally talented animator as well as being famous for that franchise but he was the one who brought my first-ever favorite tv show into existence from my early-childhood when that show premiered in 1999 back when I was 5 at the time and I still have some fond memories of the first three seasons (especially recording some of their episodes on a VHS tape back then) ‘til it ended up having seasonal rots some years later after he left his production behind back in 2004 while someone else had to take over his show without his involvement ‘til he later returned temporarily to work on his show again a decade later (probably because he wanted to save his show from dying in the wrong hands without him taking charge of his former production).
So yeah, this was completely unexpected and heartbreaking to lose a recognizable figure who brought joy to the world and I honestly didn’t know how to feel about him not being around anymore; it was just too sudden to me to hear about this when I wasn’t prepared for something like this.
Either way, I learn to expect the unexpected and now I’ll just have to accept the fact that he passed away and that I should only think about the good nostalgic memories of his show from my childhood as he would rather want us (SpongeBob fans) to appreciate his career success and to show our love and dedication to him in some way such as this drawing here.

Also, I’ve been working on this drawing for two days (December 23-25) and that it was quite physically painful to make this drawing since my hand has been overworking too much as I’ve been coloring and tracing for several hours each day and that my hand ended up having a cramp (or a wrist pain; which it’s common for many artists who overwork themselves too hard) that lasted all night long ‘til it healed away hours ago; seriously...this was a lot to go though as I had to dedicate my respect for him during Christmas without taking a rest (although I did took a few breaks).

In this drawing, I decided to draw most of the primary characters from this show; with characters such as Sandy, Gary, Patrick, Plankton, The Flying Dutchman, and Bubble Buddy being depicted either in a positive light or in their respective natures (roles) while the others such as Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, and Karen are being depicted more negatively (but in a comical manner) since I never cared about those characters and that I’ve always hated them since childhood for obvious reasons if you had seen this show every season for years in order to understand this — with Mrs. Puff going to jail since not only she doesn’t know how to teach SpongeBob more properly but she even hated him as well as attempting to murdered him at one point from the episode “Demolition Doofus”, Mr. Krabs being tortured by being force-feed to eat some lima beans as punishment (inspired by the episode “Krabby Land”) for being a selfish, greedy bastard along with the Krusty Krab being burned to the ground before a construction crane was carrying a newer version of that restaurant to replace the old one but this time with the same color shades and patterns similar to SpongeBob’s body since he became the new owner as he would pay his future employees in cash each day like any normal business would do unlike Mr. Krabs (which it’s something that I originally came up with in my mind for this scenario), and Karen who was getting destroyed in pieces by her living organic husband Plankton since she never shown any respect or affection toward him as she would often make fun of him and even nag at him over every little thing about him being a loser and a failure at everything despite him being a villain since the writers from the later seasons had already corrupted his personality anyways (talk about a “supportive” wife, am I right?) and PLUS she was just a boring robot anyways (although the only robot that I personally find to have more personality and charm would be Jenny/XJ-9 from “My Life As A Teenage Robot” since I once had a big crush on her during my childhood at the time when that show first came out in 2003). Although I initially did had thought about including that one loser fish customer from the episode “Pizza Delivery” who shouted at SpongeBob over him not getting his drink (which I assume that it was either his fault for not being more specific with Mr. Krabs over the phone or perhaps Mr. Krabs just didn’t heard the part about that guy’s order since he was most likely thinking about money on his mind at the time) before slamming the door hard in his face ‘til Squidward decided to stand up for SpongeBob (which was a rare thing for him to do) by stuffing the whole pizza box down that guy’s throat (possibly killing him in the process through suffocation) and my reason to include him was a way for me to depict what he would look like with that pizza box being shoved in his mouth in agony since it would be my way of expressing justice and satisfaction to anyone who ever hated that random nobody from that episode when they first saw it back then but not only there wasn’t enough space on my drawing to include him but I also realized that I don’t want someone like him to be on a tribute drawing to honor and celebrate Stephen’s life (especially the fact that he was only shown once throughout this show’s history and was never seen again after that).

Anyways, despite all the seasonal rots that this show had suffered from for over a decade now, let’s try to remember and cherish all the good times that we had with this show from the pre-movie SpongeBob era (1999-2004) and how much it had inspired/influenced not just pop culture and the modern world of art but even our childhoods in more fun and creative ways possible (such as creating internet memes and even inventing some original jokes when I used to call a couple of my female friends from 4th-5th grade as “Pinhead” and “Dirty Dan” as a joke whenever we do some snowball fights outside during recess every winter season) and so all we can do in this case is to support his talents and achievements, his family and friends, his co-workers from his production crew at Nickelodeon, and especially our community (fanbase) as a whole and to carry on his legacy to any future generations who would be interested in this 19-year-old popular franchise.

My prayers are with his wife Karen, his son Clay, and the rest of his production crew and voice actors at Nickelodeon. RIP Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961–November 26, 2018); thank you for creating our childhoods since 1999 and you will be missed greatly!