glim started as a question, not a character: if an AI could visibly feel what you told it, what would it need to look like? the answer turned out to be sewn, not sculpted.
felt, not sculpted
glim is a full 3D character that looks handmade: a poncho of deep-blue felt with real constellations embroidered in gold thread, a hood with cat ears, fuzzy pom shoes, a scarf that trails down its back and does its own thing. a crescent moon floats above its head wherever it goes. a tiny lantern hangs from its collar, always lit.
the material choice is the design argument. soft things read as safe — glim needed to look like something you could hand a feeling to. an early flat prototype proved the core idea (a body that reacts before it replies feels like company, not software), and everything since has been about making that body feel touchable.
seven feelings, seven colors
every feeling glim can catch has its own light and movement: joy is warm gold and bouncy; sadness a cool blue that sinks and settles — it even tints the lantern glass blue; anxiety a pale lavender flicker; affection a pink swell of glow with no motion at all. and the world wears them too — the sky above glim’s little planet washes toward the feeling, the wind rises and falls with it, and the glow-flies brighten, slow, or flicker nervously.
“the body is the interface. the words are just the caption.”
never fully still
even when nothing is happening, glim hovers — a slow bob above the grass, cloth swaying in a wind that follows its mood. it blinks on its own schedule. the moon above its head drifts a beat behind its movements. dust motes and glow-flies wander past. nothing in the world is ever fully frozen.
none of these touches are decoration. they’re the argument: something that is never fully still starts to feel inhabited — and something that reacts to you starts to feel like company.
