Theres some great avatars (I've never known what that word actually means) floating about the galleries  these days. Some of the flashing/ changing ones are very clever and eye catching, some of them  you look at, and think coool idea, I wish I'd thought of that one.

Some of my favorite Avatars are the likes of Babici (Tunde), that cheeta is just gorgous. Adreas looking all mysterious, Margana, Kimmers and Valou....don't change yours please!

But Kort? .....Can you explain what that wee green thing is doing on that pigs back? And whats that little red wavey thing flapping about the wee green things eye? lol

Mines is a character from a radio program that moved to TV in the UK. "The league of Gentlemen"

Pappa Lazzerue (hello Dave) is a sort of evil circus ringmaster that'll sell you some clothes pegs and steal your wife in the blink of an eye. Its by far (in my opinion) the funniest program on the telly ...ever. Its humour is very dark and it takes a bit of getting used to, but once your there  its hysterical and unforgettable, right up there with the likes of "Faulty Towers" (Farty Towels)

Anyway I digress. I wonder if anyone else would want to share a bit about their Avater, why you chose it? How you done it etc? And are those animated ones easy to do?

Happy Monday every one.

Sanskrit

The term "avatar" derives from the Sanskrit word Avatāra which means "descent" and usually implies a deliberate descent into mortal realms for special purposes. The term is used primarily in Hinduism, for incarnations of Vishnu the Preserver, whom many Hindus worship as God. The Dasavatara are ten particular "great" incarnations of Vishnu. The "Golden Avatar" popularly known as Gouranga is said to be the most recent descent.

Among people working on virtual reality and cyberspace interfaces, an avatar (sometimes AV, av, or avvie) is an icon or representation of a user in a shared virtual reality. The term is sometimes used on MUDs, in computer role-playing games, and shared non-gaming universes such as Active Worlds, There, Second Life, and The Palace.

This definition has recently been applied to online virtual communities and Internet forums in particular, as a picture that a member/user of such a community/forum has elected to display alongside his or her contributions in order to represent him- or herself. Avatars have also become popular in instant messaging, and are sometimes referred to as buddy icons.

Actually I used to belong to a virtual community where we had contests making special avatars.
We started off with a photo, and did graphics to them and then waited in the contes room till our name was called, then we enlarged it  for show, and judging.
Normally about 40 people were in these contests..It used to be a riot.

I aspire to conquer the world and purple tentacle is my hero!

:biggrin:

Actually I'm just a big fan of the classic adventures like Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island and ofcourse Day of the Tentacle. That's where I got my avatar.

Mine is just me. Not very clever but I don't know how to do the flashy thing. :-( (don't take that wrong..eh?) Someday I'll do a new one. But I really LOVE seeing them too. Great observation, Aangus.

I enjoy seeing everyone's avatar's too!! Some of them are a bit disturbing to me but hey, that's what makes us all different and unique!!!  I just went online to search for mine and found tons of free avatars, and settled on this goofy wide eyed baby bird, I guess I could relate to him and I love the blinking eyes, to me it says "I can hardly believe my eyes?"  I've been wanting to change it but so many choices, I can't decide what's next????    maybe.......

Quote - I aspire to conquer the world and purple tentacle is my hero!

:biggrin:

Actually I'm just a big fan of the classic adventures like Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Monkey Island and ofcourse Day of the Tentacle. That's where I got my avatar.

Why you say that ?

Hello guys / girls !

aangus.... I was wondering sometimes what was a motivation for your avatar...now I now, I like it more. I love cheetas, there was no other option for me ... my avatar Must Be  one! Change it time to time, on this one I have a permit to use it, original shot made by Fuzziyak. They all lovely I recon in its own way, I belive some of them a mirror of a person's attitude, or thinking.  I got a some favorites too and happy to see them here or in a gallery.

seeyus  Tunde

Quote -
Why you say that ?

The Purple figure in my avatar is a character from the classic computer adventure "Day of the Tentacle". His goal was world domination. Being a fan of that game I thougt he was a cool character :)

It was just a joke for the people who know the game ;)

Attached Link: ZIM!

I'm glad you explained because that was one game I missed in my youth. I figured it was something like that, hehehe. Mine is a characted from the cartoon, Invader Zim. The "green dog" on the pig's back is Zim's sidekick robot GIR in his Earth disguise. It is quite an outrageous and funny cartoon, I highly recommend renting or buying it on DVD since it is no longer on TV. I animated the avatar to give it a little ZING. I enjoyed everyone's avatars as well, esp. the more creative ones. I don't plan on always using the same one, and hope other feel like the occasional change as well. _________ ***avatar:** 1. The incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form. 2. An embodiment, as of a quality or concept; an archetype: the very avatar of cunning. 3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity: occultism in its present avatar. 4. An image representing a user in amulti-user virtual reality (or VR-like, in the case of Palace) space. 5. (CMU, Tektronix) root, superuser. There are quite a few Unix computers on which the name of the superuser account is "avatar" rather than "root". This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the term "superuser", and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at Tektronix.*

I made my avatar when I thought about the phrase: "you have a great eye for capturing photos". I thought that it had little to do with the eyes, because my eyes aren't that good, LOL. It's more a matter of the heart, and how you approach reality around you. That's why I took a picture of me blindfolded and used that as my avatar... So it's not to look mysterious or something...;-))

I love seeing everyone's avatars too! Mine is just me as well....I liked it because you can see a little of my eye behind the sunglasses....with the eyebrow raised of course. :rolleyes: I just liked how it came out. I may change it to the shot I used for last month's challenge.....kinda like that one too.  :biggrin:

I hope more join in.....love to hear where they came from and why people have them.

Great thread,Anthony.I like hearing why people have certain avatars ,as well.Remember,I asked you about yours once?

LOL at Akemi...Yes,some of the avatars are a bit...ummm...strange,lol....but some  are wonderful!

Kort's,Akemi's,Dave's and Vera's crack me up...whilst I think Kai's,Andreas',and Danielle's are wonderfully artistic and soulful.

I also love Tunde's cheetah and Ilona's butterfly...

I'm glad you like mine.Thank you....Actually, I was thinking it was time to change it,lol. Maybe I shouldn't...

:^)

You can always come back to this one Marlene. ;^] Geert, you may not have intended it, but yours alway reminds me of a terrorist hostage. 8^o I do like that flash of your eyes. :') If you want to see some wacky Avatars, you should check out MySpace.com sometime.

Me too,Kort.

I thought you were saying you are somehow symbolically being held 'hostage',Geert.

Just like aangus didn't know my avatar was a green dog with a flapping tongue, we never can be certain how other will interperet out avatars. :)

To me it depends how I feel...an avatar belongs sometimes to my mood......not always....I like to change no and then.....first I used the swallowtail butterfly......and later I use this one you see......my new avatar is me....picture taken by myself...and art made by Gunsan......but sometimes it is very easy to keep the same avatar so that you recognize who it is......before you read the name from the member......I see Marlene that you change yours a bit...same pose but darker...am I right? I liked the lighter one more....but that is just me.....

This is the butterfly I like...and I used that one for a long time.....

**vlaaitje, do you have a history as a "doll maker" or "sig maker" for web things?  The butterfly is really neat and like I often see in personal sigs( generally too long and take up too much web space!) 0  Another is the "pen writing the person's name" sort of animation. **

In Geneeral: Simple animations are not hard to do...just takes a bit of time with about 3 copies of the same image with slight variations in the one to change. These are saved and loaded as .gif files. You need a software to animate the frames into one cyclical thing, with options as to how long each frame shows and if the animation continues or just goes one time. PSP does it easily and for the kitty of mine, I took one frame and painted in the closed eye, even if the color is not quite right in this one.

My kitty avatars are just because I love them and want to give them some web time.  My face is totally lovely but not for public view very often...it doen't translate well on the web to my personal definition. LOL>

Tom.

We see ourselves as others do not.

Yeay kitties!

Oh great..............you all have these great pictures and stories behind your avatars...........and then there's me "the cow"!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL ;p You must all think I'm some hick or something...............well I am........kinda...........just cuz I live out in the boonies!!!!!!!!!! LOL ;p

I guess I have to go find myself a new avatar now :(
I don't know animation.........and I'm not very photogenic..........now what do I do????
Oh.....don't worry............I'll think of something!!!!! :)

Aw,but yours is so cute,Kim.

I liked my avatar the other way,too,Ilona.But I had commented on someone's upload,and my avatar came right after Andreas',Kai's and Joe's...and then mine.And when I saw it,it looked all pale and washed out...LOL and it bothered me.It looked kind of sickly,lol.So I darkened it.

Yours is quite beautiful.I didn't know Gunsan did that for you.She's so amazing,isn't she?

look at this one...

I used UV lighting with neon paint on my face. hope I do not scare people. I all smiles you know.

 

How do you change them now. This site change and I do not know how to change them?????

jocko, I know you are all smiles and quite talented, too.  To change avatars, go to the column on the right and scroll up to "member options". Then click "my profile". On that page is a place to put up a new avatar.     By the way, I have several kept in a folder on this computer incase I want to put a new one on and still keep the old one. That works for me. So far, I haven't changed but once, maybe.   My face is not the thing for an avatar..,maybe neon paint would help! LOL>  Enjoy the heat of your homeland tomorrow!        Tom.

That's a great one Akemi,but I still love yours the best.