One of my fondest childhood memories is playing dress-up with paper dolls. As the years went by, the toys changed to stencils and stamps, then online avatars and build-your-own characters in video games.

Now that I'm grown up, I'm working on my own version.

I started with the color palette and a simple shape for the model. Making a simplified version of this character design, I created a template of different clothing items, including tops, bottoms and shoes.

Testing it out in Photoshop, each item of clothing is a layer with transparent pixels locked to quickly change colors.

Visual inspiration includes colorful isometric and flat illustrations, with minimalist and intuitive user interfaces.

Moving on to illustrator, I created a grid based on Da Vinci's human proportions to create a dummy doll with functional joints for posing. Extremities can be moved around by using the Rotating tool and placing the point in the center of the joint.

First posing test, shifting the weight to the right leg and putting the right hand on the hips.

Final model ready for animation testing in After Effects, plus the first few items and color palettes for prototype testing in XD.

Next is the first mobile app prototype.