facebook’s messenger kids

Role: 2D/3D Character Artist

Messenger Kids is a messaging app specifically for kids ranging from 5-12 years old. Beyond the basic functions of messaging, there is also an extensive range of AR/VR masks, stickers, games, and activities kids can do within the app. During my time on the team, I’ve created a range of wearable masks, interactive activities, and decorative props for post capture pictures. The overall intention of Messenger Kids was a delightful and fun experience whilst still being educational and safe for all kids in the modern world of technology.

I got the opportunity to design a character for the Virtual Pet activity. Mirroring the experience of the nostalgic tamogachi, you take care of your pet and watch it grow up over the span of a month. Once the character reaches its final stage, its moves out of the house to live the rest of its life. Then the experience happens again when a new character moves in! My key responsibilities were illustration and 3D modeling.

I concepted various ideas of what my character could be for this iteration and decided to move forward with the Cyclops Yeti idea. I went into more detail on how the character evolves, how they wear accessories, and even their expressions. I also made sure the yeti’s house was winter appropriate and re-skinned a lot of the existing assets to fit the wintery theme. Animation was handled with a universal rig with animation cycles that were able to be re-used across different characters making this scalable for future iterations.