my head

So, apparently you're supposed to have a picture of just your head now, for planet debian, which apparently is called a "hackergotchi" head (explanations on why that name was chosen are welcome

Since I didn't have one, I looked into making one myself. It isn't very hard, actually; so, for those interested in playing with the gimp, this is what I did:

• Of course, you start from a picture of yourself. This is what I started from:

• Cut out anything that isn't called a "head". I used the "Select contiguous regions" and the "Select hand-drawn regions" tools to cut out the blue (of the background), the black (of my T-shirt) and my neck. Be sure to select the "Feather" option in the "Tool Options" dialog of both tools; if you don't do that, you'll get ugly sharp edges.
• Once you selected a region you want to lose, use Control+K to get rid of it. If you selected the "Feather" option, you'll get a nice anti-aliased edge.
• When you're happy with everything, use the Script-Fu->Shadow->Drop-Shadow option in the right mouse popup menu to add a shadow.
• Finally, use the "crop" tool to get rid of any unneeded stuff

The result:

It'd be nice if "certain people" could add this to the configuration at planet.debian.net