Avatar | eric susch

As you already know, my previous attempt to make the perfect social media avatar didn’t work out too well. Facebook was the biggest problem because sometimes their avatars are really, really tiny and the “man with no face” concept didn’t read. Also, shortly after I started using the side-view no-face avatar every single social media site changed their avatars from a square to a circle. Twitter, facebook, instagram, artstation, flicker… Everywhere. Aaaaarrrrrrgggggg!

OK, I needed something new, something simpler to understand and centered so it would look good in a circle. Enter Generic Man:

I kept things as simple as possible, centered face, no color, plain background. Getting the light right took time. Usually I like to set my own lights but this time I tried lighting exclusively with an HDRI dome. I tried many different light patterns until I got the glossy highlights and the deep set eye shadows just right. I didn’t want the light to be too flat but I also didn’t want it to be too shadowy either. This particular light pattern worked the best.

I also had to spend quite some time working on the white porcelain “skin” material too, especially since the neck of the original model was a different material. Finally I dialed in a slight asymmetrical facial expression just to give it a little something.

When I first rendered it out I kept the contrast very low. I liked the way it emphasized the eyes but it didn’t read well online at smaller sizes so I upped the contrast in Lightroom. This is the original render.

I’ve been using this avatar for several months now. It seems to work well at all sizes, even really small. It works in a square or a circle too. On Halloween I made an alternate and posted it for a day on facebook.