Sketchbook (museum)

For the Sketchbook featured on the Main Pages, see Sketchbook. For the strongbad_email.exe Disc Three bonus video, see Sketchbook (video).

Back to the drawing board

The Sketchbook, which is accessed from the Museum, includes a selection of sixteen pages of early drawings of various characters. The first thirteen are rough concept art of characters, either ones that would become main characters or be rejected at the concept stage, or occasionally depict characters in different outfits. The sketches are captioned with additional context, written in an informal tone by Matt Chapman. Many are accompanied by dates, indicating that most were drawn before the launch of homestarrunner.com in 2000.

Page Title: Homestar Sketchbook

Ice Cream Page Title: Cool Treats!

Sketches

Early (bad) drawings of Homestar and all your favorites plus never before seen characters

The Sketchbook was originally an HTML gallery, with each entry on its separate page. It was reworked into a Flash slideshow in 2006; at this time, two captions were revised and three "ice cream" illustrations were integrated into the sketchbook. The original HTML pages are still online, but no links point to them, making them secret pages.

Description	Caption	Revised Caption	Date	HTML Link
Four sketches exploring The Homestar Runner in varying states of completion. Each depicts him with some design differences from the regular Homestar Runner.	Alternate designs for the Kick the Can Homestars.		Jan 2000	Page 1
Four sketches of Marzipan, plus a sketch exploring hair and crown. One resembles her final design (originally planned for storybooks, but later made for cartoons), while the others have a much more humanoid head as well as visible arms, hands, and feet.	Early Marzipans. Way too human.		Aug 1999	Page 2
Six sketches of Strong Mad, three placing his head in varying positions on his torso and three with different hairstyles (bald, curly, flattop).	Strong Mad development. Watch his neck and head magically disappear!		Sep 1996	Page 3
Ten sketches of small dogs.	Trivia Time designs (Pom-Pom's dog). Still haven't found a good one. Is that Stimpy?		Apr 2000	Page 4
Several character sketches: Homestar Runner, Strong Mad, Strong Bad, Mr. Bland, and three new characters. All are wearing equipment related to flying, swimming, or racing (with varying degrees of realism).	Flying, swimming, and racing designs from the unfinished 2nd children's book "Homestar Runner Goes For The Gold!"		Sep 1996	Page 5
Six sketches of Strong Sad. All feature broad horizontal stripes across his torso.	Strong Sad development. I kinda miss the stripes.			Page 6
Eight sketches of Strong Sad. Many have striped torsos and/or are wearing a necktie, some are rail-thin rather than round. In the center, one Strong Sad poses dramatically with a hat and cane over the word "VAUDVILLE!"	More Strong Sad. That Vaudeville one always cracks me up.			Page 7
Six sketches of Strong Sad. The one in the lower left is drawn with very long, realistic legs and wearing high heels.	Even more Strong Sad. The lower left one is Strong Glad! Nice gams, babe!			Page 8
Six sketches of Dijjery Doo. Some have stripes or scales, or lack ears. All have two large pointed teeth, like a walrus's tusks or serpent's fangs.	Dijjery-doo, a Cheat-like prankster that was abandoned for being too Cheat-like. And too walrus-like.			Page 9
A script written on lined paper: this is the isle of Pom. {inline drawing of the isle} On it, live the Poms. Pom-Pom is the best Pom. {inline drawing of Pom Pom} He loves his mom & dad. He is very patriotic. He feeds his dog everyday. He treats his neighbors w/ respect. He doesn't play w/ matches. We all love Pom-Pom, too.	The original scribblings for the Pom-Pom solo book. Later made into a flash toon but Mike won't let me keep it on the site.	The original scribblings for the Pom-Pom solo book. Later made into a flash toon.	Unknown	Page 10
Multiple characters are sketched on the page: two images of Bubs to the left, four of Coach Z to the right, and in the center, a doodle of a face resembling a carrot.	Some early Bubs and Coach Z drawings. Don't know who the carrot-looking guy was gonna be.			Page 11
Seven drawings of Homestar Runner, in varying degrees of detail or exaggeration.	Various Homestar drawings.			Page 12
Seven characters in costume. See Rejected Costumes for additional detail. Clockwise from top left: Strong Sad (an Oompa-Loompa), Homestar (Hellboy), Marzipan (Trixie), Marzipan (Marge Simpson), Pom Pom (Comic Book Guy ), Homestar (Travis Bickle), Coach Z (Doug McKenzie)	Some costume ideas for the Halloween Episode. Ten bucks to anyone who can identify them all.	Some rejected costume ideas for Halloween Episodes. That other Marzipan is supposed to be Speed Racer's girlfriend, Trixie, okay?		Page 13

Ice Cream

"Sketchbook Ice Cream" redirects here. For other uses, see Ice Cream.

The final three pages of the Sketchbook depict three ice cream bars designed to look like Homestar, Pom Pom, and Strong Bad; they all bear the same caption ("I swear these were HUGE in Japan the summer of '87"), but have different text superimposed onto the image. These are digital color drawings, rather than the black-and-white pencil sketches of the previous entries.

In the original iteration of the Museum, "Ice Cream" and "Sketchbook" were wholly separate sections and were presented as separate HTML pages rather than a Flash slideshow. The flavor text about 1987 Japan instead appeared when mousing over the "Ice Cream" folder on the menu. When the Museum was reworked in 2006, the ice cream drawings were appended into the Sketchbook; the original HTML pages still exist as secret pages.

Description	Flavor text	Caption	Date	HTML Link
An illustration of a popsicle shaped like Homestar's head and torso.	HOMESTAR RUNNER! WOW! iCY FUNTiME!	I swear these were HUGE in Japan the summer of '87.	1999	Page 1
An illustration of a popsicle shaped like Pom Pom's head and torso.	POM-POM! SUGAR TASTE!!!			Page 2
An illustration of a popsicle bearing the likeness of Strong Bad's mask, specifically that of his original incarnation, who would later be named Tiny-Handed Strong Bad.	STRONG BAD! GOOD DELiTE...			Page 3

Fun Facts

The original "Museum" drawer, with separate "Sketchbook" and "Ice Cream" sections.

Explanations

• The original iteration of the Museum did not include Pom Pom, Too in the Old Flash Stuff, hence the remark about it not being on the site. A later version of Old Flash Stuff added in this toon, resulting in the excision of the snarky comment about Mike.

Trivia

Super Sugar Taste!

• A 2024 tweet indicates that the popsicles were illustrated in 1999.

Inside References

• The "summer of '87" refers to 1987, an oft-referenced year in Homestar Runner.
• "iCY FUNTiME" and "GOOD DELiTE" have lowercase i's.

Real-World References

• "Is that Stimpy?" refers to the left-center sketch of Trivia Time resembling Stimpy, a pudgy cat with small pointy ears from The Ren & Stimpy Show.
• The caption on the ice creams refers to the concept of being "big in Japan", where a western (usually North American or European) act achieves outsize success in Japan compared to their home country.

Fast Forward

• A cookie jar resembling Trivia Time is occasionally seen in Marzipan's kitchen.
• The never-finished second book would be revisited for its 20th anniversary, re-imagined as the toon Homestar Runner Goes for the Gold.
  • This toon features "Strong Glad", appearing with long legs as seen in the eighth sketch.
• One of the sketch designs for Bubs would be reused for the character of Original Bubs in the Strong Bad Email original.
• The sketch design of Coach Z with a large mustache and afro would be recalled in depictions of the Coach's younger days, such as in stand-up or Decemberween Short Shorts.
• Another sketchbook page shared on Twitter indicated that a Hellboy costume was considered for The Poopsmith to wear in The House That Gave Sucky Treats.

See Also

• Character Evolutions
• Sketchbook

External Links

• Visit the main Museum menu
  • view the Flash file for the Updated Sketchbook
• view the old Sketchbook
• view the Ice Cream folder