Jun–Jul 2021 Freelance

Animated stickers for a veterinary brand

Five WeChat characters, each built around one of the brand’s products.

Cat — 收到！Dog — HiCow — 哈哈哈Pig — 谢谢Horse — 赞！

The project

I designed and animated five WeChat stickers for a veterinary-device brand, each featuring one of its five best-selling products. My work covered style research, character design, revisions, and animation delivery.

My role

Designer & Animator

Status

Delivered

Build five characters around five products

The client did not ask for characters. They asked for five stickers to promote their five best-selling products: an Elizabethan collar, a hoof bath, a pet bandage, an animal syringe, and a dental float. Each product picked its own animal, and each animal had to hold its product in a way a person would still want to send.

Photographic reference board of veterinary practice: animals being handled and examined, dental float tools, a cat on a scale, scrubs
The reference board is not other illustration — it is the job itself: floats, scales, scrubs, and animals who would rather not be held.

The problem

The product needs to be recognizable. The sticker needs to be worth sending.

Stage 01

Style

Combine the two approved style directions

I put four directions in front of them before drawing anything final: a hand-drawn cute style, a realistic anthropomorphic one, a personalized comic style, and a semi-anthropomorphic hybrid. The choice was not about taste. It was about how much detail survives at 120 pixels in a chat window, and how much personality a medical brand was willing to carry.

The client chose two: hand-drawn cute for the line, and the realistic anthropomorphic reference for how much animal to keep. The pack was drawn between them.

Hand-drawn
Direction 01: loose hand-drawn cat, cow, and dog sketches with a soft outline

Loading image…

Benefit
A wobbly line still reads at thumb size, and it makes a clinical product look approachable.
Trade-off
Little room for a recognizable device: the prop has to be simplified almost to a symbol.
Realistic
Direction 02: a grid of accurately drawn dog breeds in a flat illustration style

Loading image…

Benefit
Breeds are identifiable, which matters to an audience that works with animals all day.
Trade-off
Accuracy pulls toward a catalog; the characters stop being funny enough to send.
Comic
Direction 03: textured comic illustrations of a cat and dogs, plus a sheet of cow poses

Loading image…

Benefit
The strongest personality of the four, and the widest range of poses per character.
Trade-off
Texture and fine linework collapse at sticker size, and the tone sits far from a medical brand.

Too much style between the reader and the product.

Hybrid
Direction 04: cute animals wearing clothes, standing upright like people

Loading image…

Benefit
Clothing gives an obvious place to put scrubs, badges, and branding.
Trade-off
Fully dressed, upright animals read as a mascot family rather than as patients and staff.

The clothing idea came back later, on one character, once the cast became staff.

DecisionHand-drawn

Survives the size the sticker is seen at.

Style reference boards shown to the client. The approved character drawings appear in the following sections.

Stage 02

Iteration

Use the revisions to clarify character roles and branding

The set went through close to 10 drafts. Looking back, very few of them were about drawing. In the early rounds, the client and I were discovering what “promote the product” actually meant to them — whether the animals were patients or staff, whether branding could appear on props, how visible the device had to be.

Line study · Draft 2
Draft 2 line study: the horse holds a dental float before its clothing and branding are resolved

The dental float and pose establish the character’s job before color and clothing.

Delivered artwork · still frame
Still from the delivered horse animation: the dental float remains and the horse now wears veterinary scrubs

The same product stays recognizable. Scrubs and a smaller clothing mark make the horse read as staff.

Keep the product; resolve who the character is.

Draft 2 line artwork and a still from the delivered GIF. The intermediate color drafts below show the separate decision to move branding off the animals’ bodies.

Inspect the branding change in Drafts 4 and 9

Draft 4: the mark sits on the cow’s flank and the horse’s chest.Draft 4 cow and horse with the brand mark on their bodies

Draft 9: the mark moves to the ear tag and veterinary scrubs.Draft 9 cow and horse with the brand mark on the ear tag and scrubs

What I changed on the next project

Starting to draw before agreeing on the brief led to extra revisions. On the next project, I asked the client to approve a one-page list before sketching: character roles, required product details, and permitted brand placement. The later rounds here already worked this way, and they moved faster.

Stage 03

Production

Separate the artwork into parts for animation

I sketched in Procreate and finished the artwork in Photoshop and Illustrator. For animation, I separated each approved character into head, ears, limbs, and props, then gave those layers independent keyframes in After Effects.

The cow composition in After Effects, with its pose and branded ear tag visible
01 · The approved pose. Keep the face, silhouette, and branded ear tag readable before separating the moving parts.
Separate cow-limb layers beside the first position keyframes in the After Effects timeline

Loading image…

02 · How it moves. Each body-part layer has its own position keyframes.
View the complete animation workspace

Complete After Effects workspace with the cow composition and layer timeline

Stage 04

Delivery

Back in the window where the sticker has to work

A sticker has to read at thumb size, next to somebody else’s message. Tap one in the keyboard to send it into the group.

Chat placement mock · The original artwork was refined with AI assistance for this demonstration.

  1. Rescheduled the dental for Thursday 👍

  2. Sent: the dog sticker

  3. haha, send that one again

Tap a sticker to send

Sent to the group 03 / 05

Dog

Carries the pet bandage

The bandaged paw is the greeting. The product does the waving, so the sticker works before anyone reads the brand.

From early drafts to the current set

  1. 01 Line Draft 2 Draft 2, Procreate. Pose and prop only — if it does not read here, color will not save it.
  2. 02 Color Draft 4 Draft 4. Color and expression are settled; where the brand mark sits is still being decided.
  3. 03 Motion What gets sent Chat preview Anticipation, a quick gesture and a delayed follow-through make the expression readable in a short loop.
Read the production steps

Line. Draft 2, Procreate. Pose and prop only — if it does not read here, color will not save it.

Color. Draft 4. Color and expression are settled; where the brand mark sits is still being decided.

Motion. Anticipation, a quick gesture and a delayed follow-through make the expression readable in a short loop.

Original line and color drafts beside the animated chat preview.

Delivered stickers, with animation the client recognized

The set was delivered and the client was satisfied with it — specifically with the animation, which they felt caught the way cats and dogs actually behave. The drawing got the products into a chat window; the motion is what made the characters feel like animals rather than mascots.

The lesson took 10 rounds to learn and one line to state: on a character project, the requirement is the deliverable that has to be agreed on first. Everything after it is craft.

More case studies

All work

  1. Land access for Chicago growers

    I researched, designed, and built a live directory helping Chicago growers compare land providers and understand how to apply.

  2. From tabs to ideas

    I designed this research canvas from 0→1 as the solo product designer. Launched on desktop and web.

  3. SenseTime’s design reference, redesigned

    I designed the reference and reading pages in a four-person team. Launched internally.