Create Avatar on Yahoo

What is an Avatar?

An Avatar is a digital image that represents a person. It’s generally not a real photo, though avatars can be created by modifying one in an image editing program. More commonly, as in the case of Yahoo Avatars, the image is an illustration.

Avatars are typically used on online communities where employing actual photographs is either banned or a thing of the past. Thus, you can employ virtually anything as your avatar. FYI, the word Avatar comes from Hinduism and means the reincarnated form of a deity.

Profile image – Customizing your yahoo account

There are a few ways to personalize and customize your Yahoo account. One of them involves uploading an image to the profile page; the only requirement being that it should be in JPG or PNG format. But what differentiates Yahoo from the other two popular free email services (Gmail and Hotmail) is that it lets you create and add an Avatar to the profile page. Oh and before I forget, once you create a Yahoo avatar, you can use it on Hotmail, Gmail, actually any other web site and I shall tell you more about it in the end.

To begin the process, load the Yahoo avatars page in a browser – avatars.yahoo.com and login at your account. Don’t have one? Learn how to create a Yahoo ID in a few minutes with these detailed instructions.

Please note that, at the time of writing, Yahoo avatars can only be created on certain web browsers – Internet Explorer (5.5 +), Firefox (1.0.3 +), Netscape (7.2+), Mozilla (1.7.6 +), Safari – and require the Adobe Flash player version 8.0 or higher.

The first step is to choose the gender of the Avatar – would you like it to be a male or a female – yes, here you have a choice 🙂 Click “Create my Avatar” to continue.

You now come to the main avatar creation section. Please refer the screenshot below as you read the text.

A preview of a vanilla avatar wearing a T-shirt and shorts is ready. You can go ahead and use the same but hey, that’s no fun. Keep checking this preview when you make changes to the avatar.

• Facial expression: Click on one of the smilies on top of the avatar to change the facial expression.
• Notice the 7 tabs on top? These let you change various aspects and features of the avatar including, skin color, hairstyles, clothes (apparel), backgrounds etc. You can also add different accoutrements such as headgear (hats), jewelry, eyewear, scarves and so much more.
• To change a hairstyle (found under the “Appearance” tab -> “Hairstyles“), for instance, click on your choice and it will be applied instantly – your avatar will be changed to reflect your selection.
• Under the backgrounds tab, you will find hundreds of images that can be used as backgrounds for the avatar. You can also use the plain white color.
• The “Clear” button will remove all the changes / additions you’ve made and give you back the vanilla avatar. Accidental clicks on this will undo all work done on the avatar and hence I suggest you keep adding the things you select for the avatar through the “Add to Favorites” link. At least this way you won’t have to dig through everything all over again.

I’m sure you would have understood that creating an avatar on the Yahoo service is very easy and the possibilities are endless – you can actually create an avatar that is unique and looks quite like you!

How to use Yahoo avatar on Gmail, Hotmail or other web sites

To use a Yahoo avatar on other web sites like your profile pages on Gmail or Hotmail just take a screenshot of the page, crop the image and upload it on the other services. On the left you shall find the avatar I created through the Yahoo service.

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