Dude... where's my avatar?

When I was a kid I was "The Avatar". I worked for Lord British to save the world of Brittania from the evil of Blackthorn, The Guardian and such. But now, it seems I am lagging behind the rest of the online world in that I don't have a visible online version of myself (thanks to meatpopsicle for alerting me to this travesty).

It's only recently that I changed my online name from my real nym to my psuedonym (10 points to anyone who can work out the link between the two). And now, if I want a genuine online presence, at least for forum postings and internet chat, I need an avatar.

So what is an avatar?

As usual, wikipedia has all the answers.

It turns out that traditionally, avatar means the bodily form that a god assumes when it comes down to Earth for a visit (mostly found in Hinduism). In cyberspace, it is similarly the visual form that a person takes when online. This can take the form of a character in an online "game" such as World of Warcraft or Second Life, or it can be a simple icon that you use to identify yourself on irc or internet forums. Game characters are often highly customisable, giving you a unique persona which you can mold to suit the look and personality of the character you have created. But the small icons used to chat or post on forums are another, more difficult matter.

What form to take? There are so many options:

1. A photo of yourself - boring and defeats the purpose of having an online identity different to your offline one, unless you don't want it to be different, in which case go for it.

2. An object - e.g. a surfboard if you're into that kind of thing, a wizards wand if you're a freak. This is OK, but it's a little hard to identify with someone simply through an object.

3. An animal - many people stick photos of their pets up, which is fine in a cutesy way, but is that the best representation of your online persona that you can come up with.

4. A photo of someone else - let me make this perfectly clear, a picture of Bruce Willis does not make you cool, a picture of Dr. Evil does not make you funny, a picture of Claudia Schiffer does not make you sexy, and if you stick a picture of Homer Simpson up then you can kiss my curvy yellow butt goodbye (and technically, you are probably breaking the law).

4. A unique, user created avatar that exactly matches how you want people to view you as an online entity. This is the ideal, and is so rarely seen.

Unless you are or know a brilliant artist who can create your online avatar, you'll probably be looking at one of the various online avatar creation tools. Many of these allow you to create an avatar for a particular program, such as [insert favourite messenger service], while with others you simply create an image that you can then use anywhere.

So I thought I'd start a bit of series, reviewing various avatar creation wizards. As I do, I'll be attempting to create my own perfect avatar, one that will be remembered through the ages. Or maybe I'll make 10; then I can be like Vishnu.

Oh yeah, if you are just looking to nab a picture someone else has aleady formatted in avatar friendly form, go here, chump.