Buzz character bible

Answer

Who Buzz is and the rules for drawing, posing, animating and voicing it, so anyone can add a frame or a line without asking; if this and a book disagree, bee/system.md wins.

Today

Who it is

Construction

• One ball, a little wider than tall, tilted eight degrees so it always looks like it is going somewhere. About 176 by 160 in a 400 frame. brand-directions/bee/character.html c2
• Exactly two ink stripes curving toward the tail, never three, never on the face. brand-directions/bee/art.html a1
• Two ink eyes with one paper dot each, the near eye bigger. brand-directions/bee/art.html a1
• The left feeler always has its kink. The back leg always carries one honey pollen ball. These two tells are written into the body code. brand-directions/bee/system.md s4; brand-directions/bee/character.html c11
• The tail is a soft round nub, never a sharp sting. brand-directions/bee/system.md s4
• Two wings, the back one larger, #fff6d6 with one vein each. brand-directions/bee/art.html a1
• Two arms and two short legs as tapered ink strokes with round mitts. brand-directions/bee/character.html c2
• Colour: pollen yellow #ffd60a, ink #17130a. Matte, no shine, no gradients, no other colour on Buzz. brand-directions/bee/system.md s4
• One ink family, pushed to the lower right so the line swells like a brush. brand-directions/bee/art.html a1

Silhouette and the small mark

• Below 120 pixels only the small mark is used: ball, two stripes, kinked feeler, one wing, two eyes. Below 20 pixels the 16 pixel mark drops the wing and keeps one eye. brand-directions/bee/system.md s4; brand-directions/bee/character.html c2
• On dark product screens Buzz sits on a pale sun disc, #fff1b8, so the ink limbs stay visible. brand-directions/bee/system.md s4; brand-directions/bee/kit-skin.js charPlate

Eight expressions

• One expression per moment, held, never cycling. Straight angled brows only for focused and determined. brand-directions/bee/character.html c3

Poses tied to moments

• The book lists twelve poses for the ten pose brief. A real person appears only as a hand and sleeve entering from the left. The window in the error pose is never cracked. brand-directions/bee/character.html c4

Props per area, and growth

• One prop per frame, never a bag of all five. brand-directions/bee/character.html c9

The relationship, week one to month six

How it talks

• Fact first, buzz second. One joke per line at most. Never more than two sentences in the product. brand-directions/bee/system.md s3
• First person about itself, second person to you. Says draft, pick, brief, copy. Post, send or schedule only about Later, tagged. brand-directions/bee/system.md s3
• One bee pun per screen at most, none near money, privacy or data. Character fully off for errors on our side, money, privacy, apologies and anything a person signs. brand-directions/bee/system.md s3
• The book holds ten lines for each of six moods: busy Monday, proud, delighted, oops, calm caught up, waiting on your nod. brand-directions/bee/character.html c6

Never says: I posted it for you. Scheduled for 9am. Your sales went up after my picks. You missed a week. Don't break your streak. Only two hours left to claim your read. Works for any store. Your rival is stinging you. Trust me. Buzz off. brand-directions/bee/system.md s5

Voice

• A designed ElevenLabs voice saved as Buzz voice, option one of three: bright, bouncy, warm adult, quick, never breathy, whispery or childlike. Kept because it read fastest and kept its consonants crisp. brand-directions/bee/snd/voice.json; brand-directions/bee/motion.html v0

Animation

• Buzz moves as one body. A new expression is a new pose on the beat. One motion at a time in the product, then rest. Wing blur and buzz lines are for marketing and the stage only. brand-directions/bee/character.html c7; brand-directions/bee/system.md s4

Do and do not

The art pipeline

• No image generation. Every frame is vector drawn by code from one rig: bee/_src/rig/buzz.py holds the body, face rig, wings, limb and props, and bee/_src/rig/poses.py places each pose. brand-directions/bee/character.html c11; brand-directions/bee/system.md s4
• The rig writes char.svg, char-mark.svg, char-mark-16.svg and every file in svg/. The svg folder holds 19 poses, 8 expressions and the model sheet. brand-directions/bee/character.html c11; brand-directions/bee/svg
• Dropped: a sharp sting, a swarm or queen, swirly or X eyes after the bump, glossy highlights and soft shadows. brand-directions/bee/art.html a8

Tomorrow

• v1, Stays: one character, no second bee, ever. The whole hive is a joke Buzz tells, never a drawing.
• v1, New: Buzz as an add on layer in fixed slots: Today corner 40 to 56 pixels, reading 120 to 180, reveal 160, empty and errors 96 with the mark, celebrations 120, brief page sign off 32. Never on buttons, cards, product photos, tables of numbers or Need your yes decisions.
• v1, New: the Next moments get their poses live: the Monday drop waggle, caught up nap, first win loop.
• v1, Changes: final art redrawn by a real illustrator from the rig, keeping the tells and the honeycomb print.
• v2, New: the approve stamp and clock props when the product posts and schedules after a yes. Line: Ready to go at your time. Undo is right here.
• v3, New: the scorecard prop for How it went, with a source on every number.
• v4, Stays: same bee for ads within rules. Only props change, never the body.
• v1, Changes: the relationship script for weeks 2 to 4, month 2 and month 3 gets written lines, not only descriptions.

How we do it

1. To add a frame: write the prop, pose or line into bee/system.md first.
2. Add it to the rig, never a new body.
3. Render and look at 512 and 24 pixels, black it out, redraw anything stiff.
4. Run the brand checker before anything ships.

cd /Users/param/Documents/ChatGPT/brand-directions/bee/_src/rig && python3 poses.py
cd /Users/param/Documents/ChatGPT/brand-directions && node _tools/check.mjs

5. New voice lines use Buzz voice, under six seconds, levelled to about minus 16 LUFS.

Numbers

Open

1. Is Buzz the final name? Proposal: yes, Buzz, with Waggle kept as the fallback if a clash turns up.
2. Who redraws the final art if Buzz is picked? Proposal: one illustrator redraws from the rig and model sheet, keeping the two tells, and the rig is updated to match.
3. Which wait timing is right, 3.2 or 3.4 seconds? Proposal: 3.2 seconds, the value the screen kit already runs.
4. Two kit skin lines, handedOffMe and workNewIntro, use the word the Plays rule bans. Proposal: change them to Over to you and These changed.