Surprisingly, I get asked frequently about how to create avatars or animated avatars for web sites. While these aren’t exactly in the realm of web video, I get asked nonetheless.
And one of the new (and free) offerings in the world of personal, 3D avatars is Big Stage.
With Big Stage, you simply sign-up for a free account, upload anywhere from one to three headshots of yourself (they need to be JPG files, 640×480 or higher resolution)…and just like that, Big Stage will turn your photos into a personal, 3D avatar.
From there, you can use “Sims-Like” tools to modify yourself however you’d like. You can also add your avatar to still photos or videos that Big Stage provides.
I took the photo of myself that appears in the “About The Author” section of this blog, uploaded it to Big Stage and spent a few minutes playing around. The results are below:
Me morphed into a baby bear:

Me with a fireman’s shirt, tropical background and cornrows:
If you’ve got some time to kill…and happen to be looking for a fast and free way to create an avatar of yourself, you can check out Big Stage here.

Dang, I may have nightmares of that baby bear! Freaky man… but a little cool in a crazy kind of way!
Dave – it looks like this service is no longer available. Do you have another link for it?
@Brooks – Sorry, no I don’t. Looks like they changed their business model since I originally did the post 8 months ago.