Every blog needs a mascot, and mine is a raccoon — specifically, a cute anthropomorphic raccoon wearing rainbow round glasses, a green t-shirt with bold white text, and mismatched Crocs (blue left, yellow right). Here’s the story of how that character evolved from early AI experiments to a cohesive visual brand.
- Origin Story: December 2022
- The Original Pack (v1 — DALL-E era, 2022)
- The Refresh (v2 — GPT Image, 2025)
- The Brand System (v3 — 2026)
- The March 2026 Audit
- Character Design Reference
Origin Story: December 2022
During a December 2022 time-off, I started experimenting with AI image generation for the blog. The results were charming enough to commit to: a raccoon mascot for every major section of my eulogy.
The first generation used DALL-E (the best available at the time) and produced a set of .png images with inconsistent styles — some 3D-rendered, some semi-photorealistic, some with odd color casts. They were pioneers, not polished.
The Original Pack (v1 — DALL-E era, 2022)
These were the originals, added December 31, 2022. Notice the inconsistent styles — some 3D cartoon, some semi-photorealistic:
magic
bike
lifting-weights
nerd
quill
family
meditate
vacation
These served the blog well for over two years, but the style was inconsistent across images and clearly “early AI generation.”
The Refresh (v2 — GPT Image, 2025)
In August 2025, the eulogy images got a full refresh using OpenAI’s gpt-image-1 model. This generation established the canonical raccoon brand:
- Rainbow round glasses
- Green t-shirt with bold white text (unique per image)
- Blue left Croc, yellow right Croc
- Soft plush 3D/vinyl illustration style
- Studio softbox lighting
- Subtle vintage film grain
- Children’s book aesthetic
The prompts were codified in scripts/generate_igor_images.py so images could be regenerated consistently. This was a huge leap — from “interesting AI experiment” to “coherent visual identity.”
DEALER OF WONDER
CAR-FREE SPIRIT
FIT FELLOW
TECHNOLOGIST
PAIN GOOD!
FAMILY
IGOR ♥ TORI
ON VACATION
The Brand System (v3 — 2026)
Through early 2026, new raccoon images were added for specific pages, all following the established brand:
The March 2026 Audit
In March 2026, we did a full audit of every raccoon image. Three images were off-brand and got replaced:
Updated references: 13 pages still pointed to old .png versions — all updated to .webp (including fixing a “vaccation” typo in 4 time-off posts).
Cleaned up: Deleted unused raccoon-ai-native-em.webp (duplicate, zero page references).
Final count after audit: 16 raccoon images, all on-brand.
Character Design Reference
The canonical raccoon character specification (from generate_igor_images.py):
Cute anthropomorphic raccoon character, big rainbow round glasses, green t-shirt with bold white text, blue left Croc and yellow right Croc, soft plush 3D/vinyl illustration, big friendly eyes, studio softbox lighting, transparent background, subtle vintage film grain, children’s book style. Full body.
Each image varies only the action/scene and shirt text. This constraint is what makes the brand work — instant recognition across 16 images.