by Jerrad Colaire
“The Face” is all about the creation of our new friends, 8bit and pixel.
I started the creation of pixel with one thing in mind, boxes. We all know that pixels are boxed shaped and that’s why this was the first thing I thought of. As the concept developed in my mind, I thought of incorporating a few childish attributes to it, like making it look somewhat like a futuristic robot/ transformer that changed into a truck.
And so this idea was brought out of my head and onto paper. I started him off with a pixilated afro, from which his name was derived. I then incorporated the Create Caribbean logo colors (yellow, blue, pink and white). His body consisted of doors and strap buckles portrayed as headlights, holding up his pants. His legs made up the underneath of the truck and had both front and back wheels. The shoes would be the taillights and bumper all in one. I really enjoyed developing this concept of the pixel character as it brought out the childish/ creative side of me.
For me, drawing a character from scratch was a bit difficult. This was because almost every idea of a fun childish character I thought of had been in some way used up by either kid shows or cartoons. However it was still enjoyable in the end.
As I wasn’t the only artist working on “Pixel”, the end result became this awesome merge between our two 
characters, which turned out perfect. As a result of the merge he became someone else, he took on a new look. His afro was cut down to a curly high top fade. He got new glasses, and wasn’t a truck anymore. He was a nerdy human boy and his nickname was no longer “Pixel” it was “8bit”. The name pixel was then used for his new friend. She was created by the other artist who worked alongside me, Garvin Leblanc.
Upon completion of this project I’ve come to learn that working with someone else on the same project is very interesting. It’s not just the finish product that’s amazing, it’s the entire process! We each think differently and working on a project especially an art project brings about different views of character development. Though we both worked on the same project and concept our characters had completely different elements at the end. For example, his use of boxes, to represent a pixel was not as hair but as freckles, and to me that was ingenious.
From now, until, 8bit and Pixel will be used as the Create and Code mascot. They will both be the animated face of this program and will be used as characters in the various games the children will be making in the near future.
