My Secret Obsession: Avatars

Since my intro to the ‘Net, I've spent somewhere around 15-20% of good quality time on creating bundles of avatars on almost every known site for them. Some turn out looking like me, some like how I'd enjoy looking, and some embody a variety of my daily mood changes. Here are some examples of what I've come up with...

Yahoo Avatars - http://avatars.yahoo.com/

This is a fun little way to create avatars for your Yahoo Messenger ID. There is a decent variety of faces, hairstyles, clothing, and backgrounds to go through. The avatar view screen updates rather quickly. Unfortunately, the selection of items aren't so well organized or as easy to navigate through as I would like to see. Also, it would be nicer if things looked a little more realistic. Maybe the ability to upload your own backgrounds (as they had one-time before) would be smart.

Meez - http://www.meez.com/

These ones are very animated and exciting. I came across this service via Photobucket.com (yeah, I actually did use that at some point in time). The selection is vast, well-sorted, and mostly realistic. For nearly each item you can choose which color you'd like to see it in. These are by far my favorite to create, even though they look over-animated at times. The main problem I encounter is lots of technical errors and really slow relay times when updating the avatar preview.

WeeMee - http://www.weeworld.com/

Cute little avatars, which I found while using AIM.com. It's like making your own comic character at times, and can be a great way to waste time. Here you can also choose the colors of most items you place on your Wee. Even the previews update pretty quickly. The problems I've come across, however, have been lack of user-friendly organization and no temporary save feature. Nevertheless, these are perfect if you're looking for a cute AIM icon.

My Virtual Model - http://mvm.com

This was a fun feature when I began (and shortly after, ended) my "online shopping" period. Going through LandsEnd.com while browsing through clothing, I noticed the ability to virtually try on a limited selection of the merchandise, based upon your own measurements. This lacks a good amount of websites to use it on, so I really don't go to it unless I, of course, get bored again.