Cartoon You

February 04, 2009 | Category: Lookie Here

Have you ever wondered what you would like like as a cartoon? Like that commercial, where real people get turned into animations?

Well, some years back, I moonlighted as an advice columnist. Not that I'm all that or a bag of chips, but I was asked in part due to the blog and it was a wonderful experience for the 6 months I did it.

Which is all not the point. The point? Is that they drew a cartoon of me to be used with my byline. I should have provided a better sample of pictures for the artist to draw from, which I only realized when I saw the result.

No, look. Really:

Well, today I discovered Design Her Gals. It's a website where you create a cartoon of yourself to be used on stationery, whatever. Mindy used to have a drawing like it on her site and I got all excited to make one of me.

It's fun.

They didn't have the actual apple green color that I tend to wear pretty, well, uh, a lot. But this was a nice sweater and I found myself wishing I owned it in real life. And they couldn't be expected to have a "pink streak" option. All in all, it was a cool way to blow 15 minutes.

Then I began to wonder, would I go ahead and order their products? Based on that cartoon image?

Don't get me wrong: I think it is an absolutely fantastic concept. And their site is soooo simple to use.

Except... here's the thing. I'm overweight. I wear a size 18 jean. Sometimes even a 20. And I can say so, right here in front of the WHOLE WORLD. Because it's me. You know? It's who I am, and I'm really OK with that person. I like the way I look.

I wish I had the figure of a supermodel, sure. But even more importantly, I work really hard (especially in the summers), to be healthy. I could complain about what its like to be a Bear in a Woman suit; one who physically hibernates in the winter and drinks rum toddies soaked with honey. But complaining, as a diet plan, is utterly ineffective. I tried it a few many times, just to be sure.

So I finally decided, I wouldn't buy anything. She? Isn't Me.

Then, just for giggles, I whipped out Photoshop to see if I could actually make the cartoon more realistic.

Here's what I came up with. And she? I might actually put on a t-shirt. What do you think?

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