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Creating iChat Buddy Pic Icons and Avatars

Thursday, March 03 2011 by chrisb Messages/iChat

'Buddy Pic' Series

Cartoon version of me

As mentioned in this tip, you can use any picture or image for your iChat buddy pic. If you don't want to use a photograph of yourself, you can create an avatar instead. (An avatar is a digital representation of you rather than a photo, like a Wii Mii.)

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Your avatar can be a stylized image of you, a stylized-and-better-looking image of you, an image that represents one of your interests or anything else you want it to be.

Here are some sources for avatars:

Your Mac has several Buddy pic icons in your Pictures folder.
1. Click on your Buddy Pic at the top right of your Buddy List.
2. Hit the Edit Picture... button.
3. Select the iChat Icons folder in your Pictures folder and explore the contents of the subfolders. You will find flags, animals, planets, guitars and more.
You can search Google for 'Buddy Pics" and find many sites with Buddy pic icons.
You can search Google Images for pictures that represent your interests.
Check out this site for links to websites that let you create Wii Mii-like images of yourself. (Some of the links on this page are dead, but most still work.)
Go to Cartoonize.net to convert a photo of yourself to a cartoon.

Learn everything there is to know about Buddy Pics

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