Worst Blog Ever

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).

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).

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).

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).

Work Avatar

Puppy Photo Bomb Avatar

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).

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).

Really, really retro Avatar

So, after reading this post, I'm pretty sure that the reader can come to the following two conclusions:

1. Leo loves the word Avatar (I've used it 22 times!)
2. Holy crap, is that guy full of himself! Every frigging picture is him!