Your Avatar

[Plasman]

Some people choose to represent themselves here as a pop-culture reference, or as a quirky self-image. Some just grab something interesting from the World Wide Web, or pick something that has a deep personal connection. (Or maybe you picked one of the default Unicorn Jelly images from the gallery.)

What's Your Avatar?
Want to share your story behind your little picture? This is the place to do it. After all, if you spent the time setting up a picture for yourself, you may as well give your reason behind it, and satisfy the curiousity of those who might be browsing.

What is it? Where's it from? Why'd you pick it?

[Coda]

Hypocrite. You didn't even answer it for your own avatar! *laugh*

My avatar is quite simply my Mega Man universe character's helmet.

Now, why my Mega Man universe character is my chosen avatar is where the real story comes in. Obviously, I'm a big Mega Man fangirl, but there's more to it than that. The character is a robot -- an entity whose consciousness is computer code; not only am I a programmer down to my very core, but I practically live on the Internet. And while MOST Mega Man universe robots have musical names (obviously not counting the ones ending in "-Man"), I very much live for music, to the point where I've even handcrafted two instruments. And of course, robots don't have physically-assigned genders, so that's just an added little bonus for me.

[Tychomonger]

Coda should have the power to keep going for a short time after dying. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal_Segno

[Coda]

Segno is his cat.

[strange_person]

UJ equivalent of a beach crab. I seem to be the only person who picked one of the defaults.

[Anna]

My Avatar?
I had told this story in the old forum.

Alright is this picture familar to you?
As an old forumite it should be.

I made this 1987, I was 23 years younger and I was a bit looking like the reading girl.
So I confess, that's me, the ideal picture.

It was an illustration for a german TS magazine,
(small, very small, and it was more produced as fanzines was at this time.)
The speech bubble will not make any sense to you, and even mot to me today.
"Oh no, they had print it, are they crazy?"
The Original was black and white.
I'd colour it a few years ago

This big animal I did call it a Do-Kwap.
A work for the Fachhochschule, we had to create a critter which would live in the future.

(Strangley enough all my my original sketches were gone, away, I couldn't find them until today.
I had to make it all new, I still suppose it was stolen.)

We had to make a model, at first I'd hope to get some fur for it but that wasn't possible.
A photo, the model is now about 25 years old, and you can see it.

My idea was, how could monkeys evolve if they wouldnt be as humanoid as they are today.
And as you can see, I can better draw than making statues.

[Plasman]

Aw, I was gonna post anyways, Coda...
I was just giving everyone time to make a post themselves, so it wasn't just the "me" show. It's fascinating to learn the stories behind peoples' images though, isn't it?
Anna, your evolved monkey sculpture is adorable. And I love your drawings. I think you've linked to some of your Mouse Trek images before, haven't you...? Do you have an online folio of your work somewhere...?
And there have been others who've used the default images too, S_P. They're just not as frequently visible around the forum as you are!

I think I've already explained where my picture comes form, but to reiterate:
It's a sketch that I drew in one of my old scrapbooks, and it dates back to the early '00s. I was just mucking around with a black felt-tipped fineliner, and I started doing all of these weird stylised figures and sketches. Mr Plasman was one of them, though he didn't get his name until I joined up with this forum - I just picked him randomly out of all of the pictures, and thought he looked suitably presentable, I guess... I coloured him in special for the occasion, too.

Here's some more stuff I did from the same day. I really ought to get back into drawing again; my job seems to suck all the fun and creative stuff out of me... >sigh<



If those pix don't work, you can check out the rest through this link.

[Alfador]

My avatar is cropped from a commissioned piece of art I got a friend to do of my character. The full version can be found here, and as it's not rated Mature or Adult, you should be able to view it even if you don't have a FurAffinity account.

[draque]

I enjoy repeating black and white animated patterns, so every once in a while I sit down and make an avatar in that theme. It's been a few years since I made a new one, maybe I'll have to take an afternoon and make something new...

[Ashes]

My avatar is R. Dorothy Wayneright from the noir detective/giant robot anime The Big O. She does represent me in some ways, being laconic and seeming cold but not actually unfeeling at all. She's damn stylish. She's a robot. The R. stands for robot in the same way Ms. stands for miss. It's a naming convention from Asimov's robot books; one of Big O's many homages and references.

EDIT: I forgot about the scar and the skull-and-crossbones in her hair. I added those for Talk Like A Pirate Day a year or two ago, and just left them in.

[RaharuAharu]

My current Avatar is fanart drawn by one of my sweethearts. It is Settlers of Catan Raru

[Plasman]

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!
I looked at the whole picture, Alfie, and for a moment there it looked like you were brandishing a whip (which led to some very interesting mental images). And then I realised it was actually a controller pad (which strangely enough led to even more suggestive imagery... okay, I'm a sick puppy).
Bonus points for the cute animated GIF:


Draque, I didn't realise you'd actually made that animation, 'cause it looks like one of those "random" avatars that some forums and comment-board use... how long did it take to create it? (I'm imagining you had a fair bit of free time available...)

Ashes, the pirate-y stuff adds a classy touch. For a while there I thought you'd drawn the image, actually...

I remember some of your other avatar images, Raru - you had quite a few, didn't you? Did you draw any of them, or were they all commissioned?

[Alfador]

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!
I looked at the whole picture, Alfie, and for a moment there it looked like you were brandishing a whip (which led to some very interesting mental images). And then I realised it was actually a controller pad (which strangely enough led to even more suggestive imagery... okay, I'm a sick puppy).
Bonus points for the cute animated GIF:

Thanks! The animated avatar was made by a different artist on FA, "Sandypants". My "Scraps" gallery is full of pictures other artists have drawn of me, in case you're interested.

[mwchase]

IIRC, mine is mostly a rip-off of how people would do things in Death Note, though the whole 'M' thing is also a riff on the popularity of one-letter names (L, N, K, Dr K, Soldat J, Professor X, Q, I could go on, but it would be boring). Then, some speculation I read a while back about avatars (on the old forums?) in relation to, I think, GitS:SAC, ended up spawning this bizarre yet chipper abomination. (Anybody feel like advising me on adjusting the textures? I feel like the shadows are all wrong.)

Some of my previous avatars elsewhere were... interesting. Like one that was cropped off the cover of a doujinshi. Fortunately, it was cropped enough that it wasn't obvious what was happening.

[Ashes]

Then, some speculation I read a while back about avatars (on the old forums?) in relation to, I think, GitS:SAC, ended up spawning this bizarre yet chipper abomination. (Anybody feel like advising me on adjusting the textures? I feel like the shadows are all wrong.)

I like it! I wouldn't change a thing about it. It has a crazy retro-digital charm.

[mwchase]

Well, I mean, I think I screwed up the shadows/wrinkles on the suit. Don't worry about the resolution, it doesn't go any higher. Now, the other thing I need to do is get back to playing Minecraft, but that's a separate issue.

(It's weird, actually... I've got a 'thing' for my online personas being dressed up far nicer than I ever would be... My other identity is literally an animate set of black-tie clothing. Um, literally metaphorically, or metaphorically literally, or... I don't know.)

[draque]

Draque, I didn't realise you'd actually made that animation, 'cause it looks like one of those "random" avatars that some forums and comment-board use... how long did it take to create it? (I'm imagining you had a fair bit of free time available...)

Honestly not that long. You can make layers in photoshop that act as negative filters. I made all the moving elements on separate layers, then just animated their movement by hand.

[Coda]

Me being the geek I am would have written code to do the same thing.

[draque]

Considering how few frames of animation there are, it would have taken twice the time to do that ^^().

[Coda]

But it might be more fun! *giggle*