As part of a course I’m taking through Carol Tice’s amazing website Make a Living Writing, I received the following homework assignment: put an avatar up on Gravatar to pop up whenever I comment on blogs, etc. Now, I could use a photo, but that would just be no fun, so I decided to create my own Gravatar.
Me, in black and white and nothing on my head to cover my hair. For shame!
I started off by googling “free avatar tools” and discovered a lot of nifty links to different programs to help you make your avatar. The best site I found was Digibody. The results of a picture created with their Avatar-Maker tools look much nicer and more professional than those created with other programs, I found.
However, that left me with a small problem. Or rather three:
- The pic was black and white. I thought color might be more eye-catching and engaging.
- I don’t leave my house without a hat or headscarf on my head. There was no way to put a hat or headscarf on the picture using Digibody’s tools.
- I don’t leave my bed without my glasses. (2 a.m. trips to the bathroom don’t count.) No one would recognize me without some glasses on my face.
Here’s what I did:
Thanks to Microsoft Paint, I added my headscarf, glasses, and a touch of color.
- I saved the image to as a jpeg onto my computer.
- Then I pulled it up in Microsoft Paint (how I wish I had Adobe InDesign or something fancier, but alas, no) and started sprucing up my avatar.
This is my DIY avatar. It’s recognizably me.
What do you think of the end product? I’d love some reviews in the comments.
Rebecca Klempner 
I love it!! I bet you will get an A + on the assignment. Keep up the great work!! Wow! I noticed some of the best bloggers (e.g. Bottledworder!) use Digi-body. Very cool!!
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When I started checking out Digibody, I looked at some of the tools and thought, “Hey! That looks like Bottleworder’s avatar.” After I was all done with mine, I checked back and saw that she’d used Digibody, too. And she colored herself in recently (which I hadn’t noticed).
The result of Digibody is much more attractive than the results of the other programs I found. The B&W image looks beautiful, actually, but it’s not my style. Plus, I think I must be more vain than I thought, because it bothered me that my eyes looked brown instead of blue. Who knew?
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That’s great! I’m going to have to make one of me and use it as my own personal avatar. Stay tuned!
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I love it and I want one too! Thanks for showing the way – I’m totally inspired… : )) Stay tuned for questions when I get stuck… :
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I have also been looking for an avatar! I can’t remember where I got the one I am presently using. Some online program. For now it is working but there myst be a way to take an actual picture of myself and turn it into an avatar without having to spend big money.
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Your avatar is totally cute! I like that the lines are cleaner than mine and you’re smiling. (I tried to make mine smile. Didn’t work so hot. I might eventually abandon it because of that.)
I think that you can actually use the “cartoon” function on some photo management programs, then save as a jpeg. But it looked too much like a photo still for me when I tried that.
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