You can change your avatar's appearance (skin color, hairstyle, eye shape and color), apparel, and you can add accessories, pets, and backgrounds.

The features that you can change and the options that you can select from depend upon the gender of your avatar; however, the method for making changes is the same for both male and female avatars.

The instructions below demonstrate how to customize a female avatar.

For information about how to change your avatar’s gender, click here.

To customize your avatar's appearance:

1. Go to the Yahoo! Avatars homepage. You need to sign in to customize your avatar.
2. Click the Appearance tab. The Appearance page appears displaying the choices for Face and Eyes.
   
   
3. Click one of the large, colored squares under Skin Color to select the skin color of your avatar. The avatar's skin color changes as you click the different squares.
   
   
4. To select the avatar’s facial expression and eye shape, click a one of the faces. To see more selections, click next to the right of the pictures.
   
   
5. To change the avatar’s eye color, click one of the colored rectangles at the right side of the picture you chose for your avatar's face. You can choose between dark brown, light brown, blue, and green for your avatar's eye color. Your avatar appears with the chosen face and eye color in the Previewing Changes window.
   
   
6. Click Hairstyles to choose your avatar’s hairstyle, below the Appearance tab, next to Face & Eyes.
   
   
7. Click the picture of the hairstyle that you want to add to your avatar. Click next or one of the pages numbers to see more hairstyle options.
   
   
8. To change your avatar’s hair color, click one of the colored rectangles at the right side of the picture you chose for your avatar's hairstyle. You can choose between brown, blonde, red, or black.
   
   The changes you made to the hairstyle appear in the Previewing Changes window.
9. Click Save Changes.

Your avatar now has your selections for face, eyes, and hairstyle.

To further customize your avatar, click the other category tabs (to the right of Appearance), and use the same techniques as shown in the steps above to find new clothes to try on, add pets and accessories, and select different backgrounds.

• To change the avatar’s apparel click the Apparel tab.
  
  
• Click the Extras tab to add accessories, hats, sports, holiday themes, sports and hobby gear, and even adopt pets as companions for your avatar.
  
  
• To put your avatar in different settings and surroundings, click the Backgrounds tab.
  
  
• To add branded apparel, hairstyles, hats, accessories, and events to your avatar picture, click the Branded tab. Then click a category to select your branded item from.
  
  

Don’t forget to click Save Changes when you finish customizing your avatar.

As you go through all the menu items to customize your avatar, you can add items to your favorites, by clicking Add to My Favorites. In addition, you can customize and save more than one avatar. For help on saving favorites, see How can I save my favorite avatars and items?