Character Sketch - Creating the Mouse

The first step was to find a fantastic sketch artist. The artist I found spent a few hours discussing character ideas and art styles with me. He came up with a few sketches.....

Ed the Bug?...   Ed the Clock?....

The choice of the mouse as the cartoon character was pretty much made prior to engaging with the artist. I had already envisaged the computer mouse becoming animated. The challenge at this point was to weave in the concept of time to the mouse since one of the original ideas was that the time on the computer should be limited and carefully spent. In fact, the timer component of the character has turned out to be a minor feature.

The character sketch below which Ansar drew is very close to the final character that we use. I liked the vaguely heart-shaped head, pear-shaped body, and loosely connected body.

...A Mouse!.... ...An educational Mouse!

....closer.....

....even closer....

...We were onto something, but we still needed to make some
changes to our cartoon mouse....