Hey Bash, bootskins I have made using iamages from say like my last 2 Nasa.gov, after using irfanview to decrease to 16 color 4 bit, I use MS Paint to paint progress bar and border. Save it open with Paint.net to save as a jpg for preview for site. Open with MS Paint, rect. select the progress bar, from edit menu, copy to floder as prog.bmp, then from edit, cut to remove bar from image. Next pick the color of inside area of progress border and paint the 22x9 hole from cutting bar, save. Open .ini for bootskin make sure all info is correct, open bootskin app. apply new bootskin, reboot to test. Including the 4 min. to reboot takes about 15-20 min. to make bootskin.
I also use The Gimp 2.2 to decrease color, for those 2 images irfanview did a better job.
I do have a few bootskins for which I made the image, Apophysis and Terragen renders. For an apophysis adds about
45 min. since I added 512 ram now 1 gig total it renders a 1280x1024 in about 7 or 8 min. For a terragen adds about
1 1/2 to 2 hours, takes much longer to render, up to 1 1/4 hours if water in image. When I make images I have in mind a Bootskin, Logon and if good enough a Wallpaper, which for some all three are in galleries here, some of the walls my gallery only but here.
For a bootskin like your SpongeBob, Paint. net would make doing it easier, when zoom in it shows a grid for the pixels making it much easier to Paint around a pasted image.
