When the team at Kaia Health got in touch to ask me to animate their new mascot, Karl, I jumped at the chance. Their brief was to animate Karl in different poses for various in-app scenarios. In addition, they requested that I used Lottie, a JSON-based animation file format that loads significantly faster than a GIF and works on multiple platforms.
Animation
The talented illustrator Edward McGowan designed Karl and illustrated him in various poses. The first scenario they asked me to animated was a loop of Karl sniffing as he walked. This animation was to sit on the loading screen. I then animated Karl floating while he is attached to balloons and a run cycle.
Process
I created a behind the scenes video of the sniffing walk cycle to show each stage of animation and how I reach the final product. I used the fantastic Character rigging plugin Limber to rig Karl.