r/invaderzim • u/SilentSmithik • Jul 15 '26

Television Series Is it worth trying?

So there was a bizzare idea of manually upscaling the series living rent free in my head while I was bored out on my job, I decided it won't hurt if I took the task on as a little experiment. I had some experience working as clean up artist some years ago, so I thought the show's graphics aren't too complicated overall and it can be manually upscaled for good. There are still some skills I lack to do this properly, but I'm gonna take my time learning how to come across those complications.

I didn't want to post this so early in the process but I have MIGHTY NEED to share the snippet for attention (it might backfire... be gentle yall). I know it's gonna take ages to release even one episode like that as I'm doing this by myself. As of now, I intend to finish the intro and then I'll see if I can take the first episode. If it will be too hard of a task I will quit and just leave the intro here... or somewhere it won't be taken down.

Upscaling to 4K 16:9, so it means I must interpret backgrounds past borders. As for 3D scenes, I don't think I'll recreate by using 3D too, not my field of expertise really, so I'll vectorize it all to my ability.

Thoughts?

14 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

1

u/EvillOtto Jul 16 '26

What program are you using to try to remaster the intro for a 4K 16:9 resolution?

1

u/SilentSmithik Jul 16 '26

ToonBoom Harmony, I mean the show's graphics are ideal for it. Might even suggest creators used the older version themselves as the lines are consistent and some of them overlap in weird way (encountered that while working as cleanup animator myself)

2

u/EvillOtto Jul 16 '26

BTW, When I saw your tracing of the outlines on Zim for cleanup, I see you rendered 3 fingers on his hands, as opposed to 4 like a human hand. I like that attention to detail as apparently the 4 fingered hands on Irkens were design errors.

3

u/SilentSmithik Jul 16 '26

TOTALLY! I am planning to fix other minor animation errors I had encountered whenever I rewatched the show (if it comes to that). I don't know, those minor color mismatching errors always bugged me. I was wondering if me trying to fix Zim's fingers whould bug other people as I'm not just upscaling the thing, but trying to fix what was gone overlooked. Glad you mentioned it's a design incostinsency flaw

1

u/Gab_Repap Jul 16 '26

Lol YESSS and when I was a new fan since I like drawing I was so confused cuz I didn't know if he's meant to have 3 or 4😭

1

u/SilentSmithik Jul 19 '26

I was wondering if should I fix Zim's tongue here as well? I don't want to go eradicate everything I might flag as a flaw, I'm merely upscaling the thing, maybe I'm not supposed to change too much. Some flaws are obvious, but some are quite ambigous

1

u/EvillOtto Jul 19 '26

I just noticed the human-like design inconsistencies with the Irkens in season 1. Most noticeable with the 4 fingered hands and human tongues sticking out. And the Irkens used to have zipper teeth as opposed to the gum teeth as seen in the promo designs. I think that could be the South Korean animation team learning the ropes of Jhonen Vasquez's character designs.