I couldn't tell you why, but when I was thinking about possible poses/angles/etc for a new avatar starring the boy (aka BCW, my new 'sona), the cover of David Bowie's 1977 album "Heroes" kept popping up in my mind. Seriously. Maybe it was the eyebrows which reminded me of it. In any case, I drew it on a whim today and it turned out all right. I think I'll use a colour version as an avatar. It might be short-lived until I can find a replacement, but I like it enough to attach myself to it.





I'm aware how just plain random this is, but I do like that album cover. Not my favourite Bowie album, mind you. I wasn't going to make it a full-on homage at first - I was going to just have the same pose, and it would just be the same as my avatar. But I recreated the background, found the same font, and after colouring it and adding some very quick and lazy shading, I thought I might as well make it black and white and boost the brightness and contrast to match the lighting.





I spent a long time tweaking the eye and eyebrow to get them right, but it all probably took about 3 hours in total. Also, the hair was quite difficult to get right - it's one of those cartoon hairstyles that only really works when viewed from one side (like Goku's hair, which surreptitiously flips when he turns his head so it looks the same), but it would have really felt wrong to draw it the same way. I mean, he is supposed to represent me, and my hair just goes the one way. I'unno. Anyway, this is kind of a bold step for me, not exactly a rebranding, but I have been using Avatar Guy for nearly 6 years now - I made my YouTube account in December 2012, and I'm pretty sure that was the first time I used him as an avatar. It feels weird to be leaving him behind, especially as the only name I ever gave him was "Avatar Guy"... but he's not the avatar guy any more. Hmm. Oh well.





Colour version:



