CAPY GO is a concept for an app that helps people discover simple offline activities and spend more meaningful time away from their screens. The experience is guided by Capy, a friendly pixel-art capybara who turns everyday plans into small, approachable adventures.

This project was created for the Recraft × Contra challenge, where the task was to design a mascot for a fictional brand concept. I've chosen the idea of an offline activity app — a product that helps people choose real-world activities, spend more time outside and connect with others.

AI Visual Designer | Mascot Designer | Character Designer

I developed the product concept, mascot identity, visual direction, character system, animated scenes and brand applications. I also created the final project presentation and maintained visual consistency across all generated assets.

For this brand, I wanted to create a calm and friendly mascot-helper Capy: a character who feels easy to approach, is always ready for offline adventures, and naturally brings people together.

The tiny yellow chick adds a sense of care, humor and companionship, making the character feel more memorable.

The pixel aesthetic adds a sense of nostalgia and coziness, while the minimal design keeps the character flexible for app screens, social content and merch.

I used ChatGPT to structure the creative direction, define Capy’s personality and translate the concept into clear image-generation prompts. GPT Image 2 and Recraft were then used to explore different silhouettes, proportions and pixel-art treatments.

After selecting the strongest direction, I developed expression sheets, pose variations and turnaround views.

The main focus was maintaining consistent proportions, colors and recognizable character features across every asset.

Capy was placed into small everyday activity scenes connected to the app concept, including picnics, museum visits and outdoor experiences. Each scene was designed to show how the mascot could support recommendations inside the product.

Seedance 2.0 and Higgsfield were used to test short character animations, object interaction and simple activity-based sequences while preserving the established pixel-art style.

Adobe Suite was used to refine compositions, edit the animated sequences and assemble the final case study into a consistent presentation.

I also explored how the mascot could work outside the app as part of a small brand system. Merchandise mockups helped test whether the character stays recognizable across different formats, from stickers and apparel to everyday objects.