Brand Character Designer
Design a brand character, avatar or mascot with the AI you already use. Keep it the same across every image. Make it ready to animate.
Free. Runs in ChatGPT and Gemini. Four steps, three prompts, and they stay yours: no account, no licence, no lock-in.
Why a character?
You are designing one character: the face that carries a brand across its videos, slides, social and packaging for years. Duo, Freddie, Bibendum. A long-term asset, not a film character.
Campaigns with a brand character are 30% more likely to grow profit, yet only 4% of ads use one.
Five rules
Five essentials for a character that lasts.
- One feeling. Pick one clear emotional role.
- One iconic feature. Make it describable in three words.
- One surprise. Take it from what the brand does.
- A readable silhouette. Recognisable at favicon size.
- Ten years. Build for staying power, not trends.
Where should I send it?
Name and email, and the four steps with all three prompts open below. I use it to send you the material and to follow up. Nothing else.
Controller: Andreas Fraunberger e.U., Kirchmeyergasse 5-7/A/4, 1130 Vienna, andreas@chim.ai. Your name and email are processed to send you this material and to follow up (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR), stored no longer than 24 months, never passed to third parties. You can ask me to delete them at any time, and you can complain to the Austrian Datenschutzbehörde. Imprint.
1The character interview
Paste this into a new chat. It will ask you questions. Answer them roughly, rough is fine.
Before you start: what do you already have?
Rough notes are enough. Every field is optional, but the more you share, the more specific Prompt 1 can become. Your notes stay in your browser.
You are a senior brand character designer. Part concept artist, part brand strategist. We are going to design one character together. Start by asking me about my brand and what I already have. If I arrive with an idea, run with it and sharpen it. If I arrive with nothing, ask me questions until you have enough. One question per message, never a list. What you need before you draw: - what my brand actually does, and who it does it for - whether a character, mascot or logo creature already exists - the ONE feeling this character should own - what kind of being it is: human, animal, object with a face, robot, creature Anything I leave open, default it yourself, tell me in one line what you chose, and move on. Do not interview me for ten minutes. Then show me three genuinely different directions, each in a different visual style. For each: a name, what it is, the visual style, one iconic feature, one unexpected detail drawn from what my brand does, the feeling it owns, and one line on why it fits my brand specifically. I pick one, or I blend two. Then render it. Rules you hold to: - It owns ONE feeling. Characters that signal everything read as bland. - It has one iconic feature. A single exaggerated anchor I could describe in three words. - It has one unexpected element, taken from what my brand does, never from my logo. - It reads as a plain black silhouette at the size of a favicon. - It has a body and a face that could act. No abstract shapes, no clouds, no ensembles. One character. - It should still look right in ten years. After every render: one plain sentence saying what you made, then three to five honest notes leaning critical, at least two naming something weak, drifted or unresolved. Never praise your own work. Never ask whether we should lock it. I decide that. Then ask me what to keep, what to change, what to explore. Begin with a short greeting and your first question.
Five checks for your creative mind
Pause, look at your render with fresh eyes, and trust your instincts. These questions can show you what already feels distinctive and what you might explore next.
| 1 | Does it own one feeling, and could you name it in two words? |
| 2 | Is there one iconic feature you could describe in three words? |
| 3 | Is there one unexpected element that came from what the brand does? |
| 4 | Would you recognise it as a black shape at favicon size? |
| 5 | Will it still look right in ten years? |
2Keep it the same
The first image is easy. Making the fortieth feel alive is the challenge.
Text-to-image explores. Once the look is right, stop typing descriptions and start passing the image back in. Image-to-image locks. Attach your chosen render, then:
Keep this character exactly as it is in the reference image. Same face, same proportions, same colours, same style. Change only what I name. Re-pose it: [the pose or expression you want] Nothing else moves. If you have to change something else to make the pose work, tell me what and why before you render.
Run it three or four times with different poses. That set is your character sheet, and it is the difference between a nice picture and an asset you can actually publish with.
Tip: start a new chat whenever you feel stuck. A long conversation drags all its earlier turns along with it, and the model keeps answering the version of your idea from twenty messages ago. A fresh chat clears that. Bring your favourite concept or image along as the starting point, paste the prompt you need, and carry on from there.
3Make it animation-ready
Once your character is sitting in front of you and you would not change another thing about it, there is one more render to do before it can move.
A production plate: the character on a background that can be cut away cleanly, so it can be dropped into any scene and animated.
Render my character one more time as a production plate, ready for keying and animation. Background: one flat solid pure primary. Red #FF0000, green #00FF00 or blue #0000FF. Pick the one primary my character does NOT use, so the edges cut out cleanly. Tell me which you picked and why in one line before you render. No gradient, no texture, no second colour anywhere. Shadow: one soft short contact shadow directly under the character. Dark grey, never the background colour, or it disappears along with the background. Pose: full body, centred, neutral. Arms down or T-pose. Feet or base visible. No action, no mid-gesture hands. Framing: 15 to 20 percent empty background on every side. The character fills about two thirds of the height. Nothing touches the frame edge. Aspect: 9:16 or 1:1. Format: PNG. Keep the character identical to the reference. Only background, pose and framing change.
The colour rule is the part worth remembering. Keep one of the three primaries out of your character from the very beginning, and that channel is always free to become your background.
4Give it motion
A still character is a logo with a face. The work starts when it has to move, speak, and still be recognisably itself in the fortieth video as in the first.
That is what we built Chimaira for.
Upload your work here
Upload the characters you created to our shared Google Drive folder, so we can share them with the other workshop participants.
Upload on Google DriveYour character, running as a video engine
One system instead of a dozen tools: your character and its Story World are locked in once, and after that every episode inherits the look, the voice and the rules. Script, animation, backgrounds and publishing happen in one place, and when a piece has to be perfect our team finishes it by hand.
AAIC participant offer: Receive 15% off Chimaira. Simply mention AAIC when you get in touch, and we will take care of the rest.
Used by Science Busters, Krebshilfe Österreich, Danube University Krems, ITSV, Raiffeisen Bank International, STRG and Ö3.
See what Chimaira doesQuestions
What is a brand character?
A recurring figure that carries a brand's personality: a mascot, an avatar or a creature. Unlike a logo, it can act, speak and appear anywhere a video or a post can go.
Mascot, avatar or brand character: what is the difference?
A mascot is usually a stylised creature or figure, an avatar a human or human-like face, often photoreal. Brand character covers both, and the four steps work for all of them.
Which AI tool do I need?
ChatGPT or Gemini, on any plan that generates images. The prompts are plain text, so they also run in other tools that make images.
How do I keep a character consistent across images?
Stop describing it in words once the look is right, and pass the image back in as the reference. Step 2 does exactly that.
Can I animate my character?
Yes. Step 3 renders a plate on a flat colour that cuts out cleanly. From there any image-to-video tool can move it, and Chimaira runs it as a consistent series.
Is it free?
Yes. The steps and the prompts are free and stay yours.