Generation of a personalized 3D morphable model of a user's face may be performed first by capturing a 2D image of a scene by a camera. Next, the user's face may be detected in the 2D image and 2D landmark points of the user's face may be detected in the 2D image. Each of the detected 2D landmark points may be registered to a generic 3D face model. Personalized facial components may be generated in real time to represent the user's face mapped to the generic 3D face model to form the personalized 3D morphable model. The personalized 3D morphable model may be displayed to the user. This process may be repeated in real time for a live video sequence of 2D images from the camera.