Universe

A faithful port of the LaTeX package figchild (Figures for Creating Children’s Activities, Fernando de Souza Bastos, UFV, v3.1.2) : 561 colourful line drawings (animals, vehicles, food, letters, numbers, …) for teachers who create activities for children.

example.png

Two rendering backends:

  • CeTZ — exact reproduction of the original TikZ drawings (#canvas(...));
  • Scrawl — a hand-drawn variant with a wobbly stroke (#scrawl(...)).
#import "@preview/figchild:0.1.0": *

#canvas(fc-owl-a())                          // exact CeTZ rendering
#canvas(fc-dino(scale: 0.5, rotate: 10deg))  // TikZ-like options
#scrawl(fc-pumpkin(), seed: 3)               // hand-drawn style

Module style also works:

#import "@preview/figchild:0.1.0"
#figchild.canvas(figchild.fc-bee())

The 561 figures

Every macro \fc… of the original package maps 1:1 to a function fc-… (kebab-case): \fcOwlA → fc-owl-a, \fcIceCreamA → fc-ice-cream-a, \fcAlligator → fc-alligator, …

  • #figure-names returns the full list of original macro names, in the order of the original .sty.
  • #all-figures (from figures.typ) is the index of every figure function.
  • The generated definitions live in figures.typ (do not edit by hand; see tools/convert.py in the repository for regeneration).

Options

canvas and scrawl accept the usual figure options, applied like the optional argument of the original macros:

  • scale (number), rotate (angle), shift (coordinate)
  • fill (color) — overrides the drawing’s own fill colour
  • stroke (color) — overrides the stroke colour
#canvas(fc-apple(fill: red))
#canvas(fc-crown(rotate: 25deg, scale: 0.8))

scrawl additionally takes seed, roughness, margin and hand (see #scrawl docs).

Combining figures

render returns CeTZ elements, so figures can be combined freely inside a single canvas:

#import "@preview/cetz:0.5.2"
#cetz.canvas({
  render(fc-bee()) + render(fc-flower-a(shift: (3, 0)))
})

Fidelity

The port is a mechanical conversion of the TikZ code: every \draw of the original package becomes a list of drawing operations with its styles, nodes and edges. The exact PGF semantics are reproduced (parabola and smooth-plot Bézier coefficients, arc kappa 4/3·tan(Δ/4), clockwise arc(270:190:…), TikZ 3D points, cm={…}, …). See the repository’s verification tooling (tools/geocheck.py, tools/compare.py).

Atlas et démo

  • atlas.typ / atlas.pdf : toutes les 561 figures sur des pages A4, chacune mise à l’échelle automatiquement pour tenir dans sa cellule (les tailles naturelles vont de ~1.7 cm à ~31 cm) et étiquetée avec son nom fc-…. Compilez atlas.typ pour régénérer le PDF.
  • demo.typ / demo.pdf : démonstration (rendu exact, variante Scrawl, options à la TikZ), 2 pages A4.

Notes

  • The original package’s \includegraphics traces are commented out in the source and are not part of the port.
  • The Scrawl backend samples curves, so it is visually faithful but not geometric (CeTZ is).
  • Fonts: figures use only strokes/fills, no text — no font dependency.

License

This port is derived from figchild (LPPL 1.3c), Copyright 2021–2026 Fernando de Souza Bastos fernando.bastos@ufv.br and contributors (UFV). Distributed under the same license, LPPL-1.3c (see LICENSE). This is an independent port, not affiliated with the original authors.

FERGOUS Abdelhak.