Rive Character Animator for Interactive Website Mascot

We are building Shifu, an AI GTM/Opportunity Intelligence product with a playful animated dog mascot. We already have the character design and visual direction completed. We are looking for an experienced Rive character animator to take the existing assets, prepare/optimize the character for animation, rig it in Rive, and create a small library of reusable animations for our website. Assets already available We will provide: Original photographs used to develop the mascot Approved Shifu character design Character animation master/reference sheet Rig-parts reference sheet High-resolution full-body Shifu artwork Vectorized full-body Shifu SVG Separate reference artwork for head, body, eyes, ears, legs, tail, mouth, tongue, collar and S tag Defined character colors and visual style Defined animation behaviors and landing-page concept The existing full-character SVG is detailed and may require optimization/rebuilding/separation into animation-friendly vector layers. We expect the animator to determine the best Rive production approach rather than simply animate the existing SVG as-is. Animations required Create one consistent Shifu character rig with these reusable states: Animation Behavior IDLE - Natural breathing, blinking, subtle head/ear movement and gentle tail wag SNIFF -Head lowers, nose sniffs/searches left and right, ears react WALK-Friendly natural walking loop with body/ear/tail movement FOLLOW SCENT- Focused walking/sniffing pose as Shifu follows an opportunity trail REJECT- Sniffs something, pauses, gives a playful/unimpressed reaction and turns away DIG-Energetic digging/searching motion representing deeper opportunity research FOUND- Excited discovery reaction—head up, expressive eyes, ears react and tail wags Animations should feel playful, intelligent and premium—not childish or overly cartoonish. Rive requirements We expect the freelancer to: Prepare/optimize the supplied artwork for Rive Separate necessary character components Create an appropriate bone/mesh character rig Establish correct pivots and hierarchy Preserve Shifu's approved appearance Create smooth looping animations Build a Rive State Machine allowing the website to trigger the different behaviors Optimize the character for responsive web/mobile performance Test transitions between animation states The website itself is not part of this job. Our development team will integrate the resulting Rive asset into a Next.js website and control Shifu's movement around the page separately. Deliverables We want both production files and editable source files so the character is not locked to the freelancer. Please deliver: Final optimized .riv file Editable Rive source/project Final animation-ready SVG/vector character assets Any Illustrator/Figma/vector source files created during character preparation Working Rive State Machine containing all 7 animation states Web-ready optimized version of the .riv asset Short documentation listing state-machine inputs/triggers and animation names Simple demo/test showing all seven states and transitions All source files and final IP/work product must be transferred to us upon completion. When applying Please send 2–3 examples of character animation specifically created in Rive. Interactive mascot/character work is preferred over logo or text animation. Please also briefly explain: How you would prepare our existing SVG for character rigging Whether you recommend bones, meshes, nested artboards, or a combination How you would optimize a detailed furry character for web performance Estimated turnaround time Fixed-price quote Preferred: Someone who can handle the complete workflow from supplied character artwork → vector cleanup → Rive rig → animations → state machine → production-ready .riv.