The challenge
Demonstration project, not a client case study. The brief is to make an approachable character that reads clearly in a website hero and can extend into a small vocabulary of useful reactions. No client results or production metrics are claimed.
Mascot artwork
The original orange character has a compact silhouette, large eyes and a welcoming hand gesture. The displayed artwork is generated concept imagery. It is a visual direction for review, not a finished animation rig.
Rigging and interactions
A production rig would need separate, controllable facial elements and limbs. The planned core states are calm idle, blink, constrained gaze and greeting. SaaS success, educational encouragement and assistant states would be additional scoped reactions.
State machine
The proposed contract uses lookX and lookY numeric inputs, a click trigger, hover boolean and reset trigger. Every temporary reaction should return to a predictable neutral state. This contract remains a plan until the Rive export is authored and tested.
Website implementation and current result
The current website shows optimized static artwork with a reserved layout box. Its Rive adapter is ready for a compatible export and includes lazy loading, reduced-motion handling, offscreen pause and failure fallback. No live rig is claimed for this demonstration.
The final production milestone is replacing the placeholder path with a real Rive file, validating the input mapping and reviewing all behaviors in the browser. This page demonstrates the case-study structure that real projects can later use.