Discover everything you need to know about custom avatar creation, including creating custom voiceovers, in this ultimate guide.

How to make a custom avatar: The ultimate guide

Avatars are fun images you can use to represent yourself on social media and forums. Over the last few years, more and more people have wanted to have their own to use online. Others also use their avatars as stickers to send in their messages. If you’re looking for ways to create an avatar, you’ll find a step-by-step guide in this article.

Creating an avatar for website accounts

There are many different ways to create a custom avatar for your accounts. Here you’ll find a complete beginner’s tutorial on how to make an avatar.

1. Coming up with the designs

The first step of every avatar maker will be to come up with the perfect design. While most people choose humanoid avatars, including their facial features and hairstyle, an avatar can be anything. Choose an image according to your interests or your forum’s user name. That way, people can easily recognize and associate your avatar with you.

2. Find the image

Use Bing, Google Image Search, or a selfie to create your avatar. Don’t forget avatars look quite small on sites, so try not to choose full-body images or landscapes. When shrunk, they will be hard to recognize.

3. Go to your image editing software

To create your personalized avatar, you can use any image editing software, from Paint to Photoshop.

4. Crop the image

As your avatar has to be relatively small, you need to cut out everything around the subject you’re going to use. Depending on your software, you may have different ways to do it. However, this method will work for most of them. Select the rectangular tool and select just the subject you want to keep. Copy it to the clipboard, and paste it into a new file.

5. Check the dimensions

Most forums allow avatars that are between 50 x 50 and 100 x 100 px. However, you may want to check with the specific platform in case they have special dimension requirements.

6. Resize the image accordingly

Every picture editing app will have a “Resize image” tool you can use to change the scale. If the image allows it, you can also choose to crop it out a bit more.

7. Save the image in PNG format

Choosing the correct format to save your avatar is important. Portable network graphics (PNGs) are used to save high-quality images at the lowest possible compression size.

8. Add text and effects

If you’re using a professional image editor such as Photoshop, you can add text and other effects, including a drop shadow that will make it look like a 3D model.

Creating advanced avatars

Advanced avatars are the ones you see V-tubers or Virtual YouTubers use. They do the same things other YouTubers do, like playing video games or talking to their audience. The only difference is they don’t show their faces. Instead, they use high-quality avatars. These unique avatars vary from 2D images with minimal animation to 3D models with body motion features. If you want to have one of these, you’ll need a special avatar creator named VRoid Studio. While there is other software available, this one is the most popular and easy to use. Here’s a beginner’s guide on how to create your own avatar.

1. Download VRoid Studio—This software is compatible with Microsoft Windows and Mac. Choose “For beginners” to start with a preset template. Select whether you want a male or female avatar.
2. Create your avatar—This avatar creation process will take you through seven stages: face, hairstyle, body, outfit, accessories, look, and photo booth.
3. Editing—At every stage of the editing, you can play with an incredible number of options until you customize your avatar exactly the way you want it.
4. After effects—VRoid Studio’s amazing after-effects edition will provide your avatar with polished, professional-looking animations, including facial expressions and poses, even in the beginner's stage.
5. Save your new avatar and export it as a .vrm file—To create a VRM file, press the “Export” button and then the one next to “Camera/Exporter.”
6. To bring your characters to life and become a V-Tuber, download VRoid Hub and upload your avatar.

Make a unique voiceover for your custom avatar

Speechify is an excellent AI tool you can use to add voiceover to your avatars. With Speechify Voiceover Studio, you can customize over 200+ natural-sounding voices in 20+ languages and accents. Create custom voices to match your custom avatar for YouTube videos, presentations, virtual reality, and more. Try it out today on Android, iOS, Windows, or Mac devices.

FAQ

How do you make a custom avatar on VRChat?

If you want to create an avatar on VRChat, you can create one by using a model or starting from scratch. If you choose the latter, VRChat provides a thorough tutorial at Rainhet’s Blender 3D Avatar tutorial. However, the easiest way to do it is to choose a model and use an avatar creator to customize it.

How do I import custom avatars into Bonelab?

In Bonelab, you’ll have to upload your avatar to the Mod section. You’ll find this section under appdata/locallow/Stress Level Zero/Bonelab/Mod.

How do I make an AI avatar for free?

Gencraft is an app to create AI avatars for free. Note the avatars created under the free plan will have a watermark.

What is the difference between a custom avatar and a pre-made avatar?

A custom avatar is the digital version of a person created from a picture. A pre-made avatar, on the other hand, is created using customizable templates to make it look like you.