Cute 3D Mascot Animation

About the Project

We're looking for a talented **3D Character Designer and Animator** to help bring our mascot to life.

We already have a character concept and several AI-generated visual references illustrating its appearance, personality and different expressions.

Your job will be to transform these references into a **unique, professionally designed, consistent and production-ready mascot** that can be used throughout our mobile application, website and marketing campaigns.

We want the character to feel friendly, confident, slightly playful and instantly recognisable, with a premium, soft 3D appearance similar to modern consumer app mascots.

This is not simply an illustration project. We're looking to build a character that becomes a core part of our brand identity.

## What We're Looking For

**1. Character Design & Development**

- Refine our existing mascot concept into an original, distinctive character.
- Create a consistent 3D or premium 2.5D visual style.
- Maintain consistent proportions, facial features, colours and personality across all poses.
- Develop a reusable character system that allows us to create additional expressions and animations in the future.
- Ensure the character works at both large and small sizes, including inside a circular avatar in our app's chat interface.

**2. Different Expressions & Character States**

We want the mascot to react naturally to different activities and situations inside our app.

Initial states include:

- **Idle / Waiting:** Relaxed, smiling and ready to help.
- **Listening:** Attentively listening when the user asks something.
- **Thinking:** Curious or thoughtful expression.
- **Searching:** Quickly typing on a laptop, wearing headphones, searching for information.
- **Processing:** Focused on completing a task.
- **Found It:** Happy expression, giving a thumbs-up.
- **Success / Completed:** Celebrating a successful action.
- **Nothing Found:** Slightly disappointed or apologetic expression.
- **Need More Information:** Curious expression, asking the user for clarification.
- **Urgent Attention:** Alert and attentive without appearing alarming.

We will also require additional static character illustrations for features such as account security and empty screens.

**3. Lightweight Character Animations**

The mascot will appear primarily inside a **small circular avatar at the top of our app interface**.

We want subtle but engaging animations triggered by user interactions.

For example:

- When a user submits a question, the character begins typing rapidly on its laptop.
- While searching, it looks focused and occasionally reacts.
- When a result is found, it smiles and gives a thumbs-up.
- If nothing is found, its expression changes sympathetically.
- When idle, it has a subtle breathing, blinking or movement animation.

The animations should be smooth, lightweight, loopable where appropriate and optimised for use in a mobile application.

**4. Deliverables**

We expect:

- Original master character design in high resolution.
- Reusable 3D model or layered 2.5D source files.
- Consistent static illustrations for all agreed character states.
- Transparent PNG/WebP exports.
- Animations in appropriate mobile-friendly formats, such as Lottie, Rive, WebM or other suitable formats.
- Editable source files (Blender, Cinema 4D, After Effects, Rive or equivalent).
- A basic character style guide covering colours, proportions, expressions and usage.
- Full commercial usage rights and assignment of intellectual property to Crux Global Ltd.

We are open to your recommendations regarding the most suitable production approach, particularly if you can achieve a convincing 3D appearance without requiring heavy real-time 3D rendering inside the application.

## Ideal Candidate

- Proven experience designing 3D mascots or characters for consumer brands.
- Strong portfolio of polished, expressive character designs.
- Experience creating lightweight animations for mobile applications.
- Understanding of character consistency, rigging and reusable animation systems.
- Ability to work from visual references while developing an original design.
- Strong attention to detail and ability to deliver production-ready assets.

Experience with **Rive, Lottie, Blender, Cinema 4D or After Effects** would be advantageous.

## How to Apply

Please include:

1. Examples of mascots or 3D characters you've personally designed.
2. Examples of character animations, preferably used in apps or websites.
3. Your recommended approach: full 3D, 2.5D or another technique.
4. The software and animation formats you would use.
5. Your estimated timeline and fixed-price quote for the initial character design and 10 animated states.
6. Whether you can provide editable source files and full commercial IP rights.

**Please start your proposal with the word "MASCOT"** so we know you've read the project description.

We will share our existing character concepts and references with shortlisted candidates.

We're looking for someone who can help create a memorable character that users genuinely enjoy interacting with, not just another generic AI illustration.

There is potential for ongoing work as we expand the mascot's expressions, animations