Nicolas Rowland

Many have asked about how I created my avatar. I have never really liked having my picture taken and am never quite satisfied with the way I look in photos taken of myself. It is because of this that I never liked posting pictures of myself on social websites either. That’s why last month I decided to create an avatar or a picture that represents me to the internet. I still wanted people to know what I look like and had the idea of wanting to create something like the portraits in Leo Laporte’s TWIT podcast logo. They had those done by Nitrozac Portraits, however you will pay a pretty penny for one of those. After trying to recreate my avatar, I’ve realized that I don’t remember how I achieved the sketch effect. I can, however, give you a link for a tutorial about how I got mine started. After following the steps in the tutorial, I took out the background and started to clean up the sketch by using the brush tool to trace over the outlines and blank out everything else. I also went through and fixed details I did not like about the photo such as my hair and shirt. Your results may vary according to the photo you are using and your degree of Photoshop skills. You may also want to go through with the paint bucket and colorize your skin, hair, shirt, etc. Hope this has satisfied everyone’s curiosity and feel free to ask questions. Down below are images of the original versus the final avatar.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]