Scoop character bible

Answer

Who Scoop the raccoon is, how it is drawn, how it acts and talks, and the rules every new frame or line must follow if Param picks this direction.

Today

Scoop exists as an audition character with a full set of books, vector art on one rig, sounds and a voice. Nothing of it is in the live product.

Who it is

Personality dials

How it is drawn

• Five shapes: a pear body on one curved spine with the head on top, two small round ears, one straight ink bandana band wider than the face, a tail in an S curve as tall as the body, a plain tangerine notepad with nothing written on it. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4
• The band is knotted on the right with two short cloth tails, in every view. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c2
• Big white eyes set in the band, thick ink brows that do the acting, closed mouth, no teeth. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4
• The default face is the sly smile: lids lowered, eyes glancing aside, one brow up, a smirk lifting on one side. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4
• The tail has exactly three tangerine stripes and a grey tip, every frame. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4
• Colours: ink #17171c, fur #8e8f99, fur light #b9bac2, tangerine #ff7a1a, on paper #f6efe3. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s1
• Printed as a two ink tabloid page: ink and tangerine on paper, every grey a 45 degree halftone of ink dots, one traced line weight, a fine paper cut line around the figure that only shows on dark pages. No gloss, sparkles or white sticker border. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4
• Silhouette test: the small mark char-icon.svg is drawn for 24 pixels with the knot visible, and the full figure reads at 48 pixels with the notepad. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c2
• Draw from memory: a leaning pear, two ears, a black band, a paw at the mouth, a big curved tail with three orange stripes. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c2
• Everything derives from one master, art/master.svg, and one face drawn in _src/master.py. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4

Eight expressions

Ten poses, ten moments

If a moment is not on this list, Scoop stays in the corner with the sly smile. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c4

Props, one per area

The modes sheet draws four raccoons for five props, so one holds two, and the band and both eyes stay clear of every prop. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c9

Growth

The books tag doer and reporter as Later. The version mapping above follows the team's v1 to v4 plan. memory brand-directions-2026-10-25

Week one to month six

Through all six months Scoop keeps no score of missed weeks and takes no credit for results. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c5

Lines it says and never says

• Gossip verbs to use: heard, overheard, spotted, noticed, between us, psst. Never: spy, stalk, track, watch you, leak, dirt. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s2
• Scoop talks about itself for four words at most, one idea per line, two sentences at most. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s3
• A person, never Scoop, handles money, privacy, apologies and anyone upset. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s3
• The character book holds about fifty more lines by mood: reading, picks, errors, caught up. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c6

Voice

• A designed adult voice in its thirties, low, a little husky, quick and conspiratorial, like a friend leaning across a cafe table. No impression of anyone real. brand-directions/raccoon/snd/voice.json
• Made in ElevenLabs from a written description. Option 2 of 3 was kept as the quickest with the widest pitch range, named Rummage voice. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c6; brand-directions/raccoon/snd/voice.json

Animation

The system file gives the product idle as a sway of 3.4 s, a little shorter than the rig's 3.6 s lean. brand-directions/raccoon/system.md s4

Do and do not

Art pipeline, as run

• The first art push used 28 image calls, art push 2 used two, and every prompt and output is logged in img/art-log.json. brand-directions/raccoon/character.html c11
• The round 3 critic said the hero and icon still showed a stock grin. The hero, icon and poses were rebuilt after that review on 25 Oct, and the system file now makes the sly smile the default. No critic has scored the new art. brand-directions/raccoon/review.md; file times of raccoon/char.svg and review.md

Tomorrow

If Param picks Scoop, these rules become the product's character rules.

• v1, New: Scoop is an add on layer in fixed slots that reads app state and never blocks a control. Remove it and the product still works.
• v1, New: slots and sizes. Today header corner 40 to 56 px, Reading your store 120 to 180 px, the reveal 160 px, empty states 96 px, celebrations 120 px, errors and cap reached 96 px, the brief page sign off 32 px. Only the small mark below 120 px.
• v1, New: never on buttons, inside the thing being made, on tables of numbers, in Need your yes decisions or over a brand's own photos.
• v1, New: never in the brand's own six second videos or drafts. Scoop belongs to our marketing, not the founder's ads.
• v1, New: one character forever. New abilities arrive as props: a pocket diary for scheduling, a newspaper for results.
• v1, New: the public pages line is said wherever reading happens, and connections are described as read only.
• v1, New: the sly smile is the default face in the corner slot. The gasp is for good news only.
• v1, Changes: final art redrawn by a real illustrator from art/master.svg, keeping the five shapes, the knot, three stripes and the print.
• v2, New: the doer. Same notepad, a new page: prepared files and scheduled slots, always after a person says yes.
• v3, New: the reporter. How it went, told as next week's gossip, every number with its source.
• v4, New: running ads within the brand's rules, still narrated by Scoop, with undo always available. No new character.

How we do it

1. Before writing a line, read brand-directions/raccoon/system.md in full. It wins over habit.
2. Before drawing a frame, add the pose, prop or line to this bible and to the system file first. Never add a second character.
3. Draw on the rig from art/master.svg and the face in _src/master.py. Never redraw the body by hand.
4. For raster art, use Gemini with img/m8.png as the reference and the base text in shots.json restated in every prompt, on flat #f6efe3 paper.
5. Reject any image with letters or squiggles, a white border, extra figures, sparkles, or a tail with other than three stripes.
6. Test every new frame at 24 and 48 pixels on dark and light.
7. Run the writing checker on every line:

cd /Users/param/Documents/ChatGPT/brand-directions && node _tools/check.mjs raccoon

8. Put every invented example in the sample candle store with a visible Sample label: Monsoon candle, Chai spice candle, Jasmine night candle.

Numbers

Open

1. Is gossip the right frame for the product? Proposal: keep it, because the read is our real edge and the public pages line turns the trust rule into a catchphrase, and test it with the five founder tests before deciding.
2. Is Scoop the final name, over Tidbit and Rummage? Proposal: keep Scoop, since the character and the weekly picks share one word.
3. Who redraws the final art? Proposal: brief one human illustrator with this bible, the master and the turnaround, and keep the generated set as reference only.
4. The redrawn hero and icon have not been scored. Proposal: run one fresh critic round on the new art before the pick.