Kiki

Kiki started as a joke about a name. Krita means squirrel in Albanian, so when the KDE forums went looking for an icon in 2012, somebody drew a squirrel, and Tyson Tan turned the mock icon into an anthropomorphic character. It did not stick as an icon, but it was good enough to become the cover of Krita's 2.6 introduction booklet, and by the time 2.8 shipped in 2014 she had a refreshed design, a pink accent to match the new app icon, and a name. Krita's own documentation lays out the reasoning in a way most agencies would charge for: white is the canvas, black is the default dark interface, pink is passion, sky blue is creative freedom, the pupils are flowers because eyes are for beauty, the ears are buds because she is a budding artist. She is playful, independent and left handed. In the lore she is a robot artist built by the dragons of KDE Valley, which quietly links her to Konqi's world, and she travels across time and space studying masterworks. Every Krita release since 2.8 has shipped her on the splash screen in a new pose, so the version history of the software is also a character sheet. In 2017 Tyson drew a mechanically detailed reference version and the Japanese modeller Ito Ryou-ichi turned it into an injection moulded plastic kit you can buy and build. A free painting program with no marketing budget got further with its mascot than most funded consumer brands ever do.