Ages and ages ago, not long after joining Facebook actually, I took a selfie of myself (funny how that works) and after cropping the photo, I set up my first avatar (see below).
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Original Avatar |
What I liked about this avatar was the fact that although you could see who I am, I am still partly obscured; you never get to see the whole picture.
Another thing that I like about this avatar is the fact that there is a deranged fish to keep me company. The fish doesn't actually have any true meaning, it is just one of many pieces of fish artwork that we purchased a long time ago from The Forks, in Winnipeg.
If nothing else, the fish, with it's big goofy grin, represents a large portion of my personality. Most of my friends know that I hardly ever take life too seriously, and I am at my highest point when I'm making other people laugh.
So this avatar was posted on my Facebook profile and I left it at that for a while. Then, a few years ago, Kristie's parents gave me a Wacom tablet to help me explore my creative side, and one of the first things I did was create a new, hand drawn avatar, based on the original (see below).
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First hand drawn avatar |
I created this avatar using GIMP, which is a free, opensource alternative to Photoshop. It took me quite a while to get use to the software and the tablet, but I was pretty happy with this first attempt and posted it as my new avatar.
After a while, I got a bit better at using the tools that I had available, so I decided that I would try to upgrade my avatar a bit. So after quite a bit of trial and error, I created a new one which I have used as the basis of my current avatar since its completion (see below).
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Second hand drawn avatar |
As you can see, this one, while still retaining a cartoon-like framework, looks a little more true-to-life than the original one that I drew.
While I was fairly happy with the original avatar that I drew, I was elated with the new one. I used it as not only my Facebook avatar, but for every online site that would allow you to create your own avatar; including my login avatar on Linux (no, I don't use windows).
The great thing about creating this version with GIMP was that I saved the original drawing with all its multiple layers. That meant that I could keep my representation of myself the exact same, but I could change the background image to anything I wanted (see examples below).
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Work Avatar |
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Puppy Photo Bomb Avatar |
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Robot Rabbit Avatar?? |
All of these, have at one stage or another, been what I use to represent myself on the inter-tubes.
I mostly try to keep the same image of myself and change up the background image, but every now and then, I like to try to change it up, like this flat UI version (see below).
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Flat UI Design Avatar |
Today I finished up a new one that I'm going to using for a project that I have in mind. While I won't be using it on Facebook, I hope that many people will get to know this one as time goes on (see below).
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Really, really retro Avatar |
So, after reading this post, I'm pretty sure that the reader can come to the following two conclusions:
- Leo loves the word Avatar (I've used it 22 times!)
- Holy crap, is that guy full of himself! Every frigging picture is him!
I have made avatars (23 times) for others as well. I've made one for my my wife Kristie, one for my friends Leah and Stacey, and one for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.
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