A case in point indeed on how people interpret things differently!

I mean to me (having being a youngster at 70's and partly 80's in Finland) someone adoring a pic of sheltie was 100% female to be sure! They had pics of those dogs in their rooms but no guy could have ever done that... :rolleyes:

So I mean it's not a question whether the dog in the pic (or the famous Lassie) is male or female, but to love a pic like that was just "girly" when I was of the age people had posters on their walls... :p

I'm happy to see the world is not like that black and white anymore.

Ai! Ai! *runs and scampers into a corner*

After seven years of appearing almost exclusively as Fiona (with a slight divergence to the Asterix image which impersonates my Merisuwyniel RPG character) I hate to disappoint people, but I am not a princess! I know, I know - the personal title says I am, and of course I had to choose a princess image to go with it. Most movie/fairytale princesses were too saccharine for my taste, so Fiona was a logical choice. I like her unconventional style!

Contrary to what some might think when I step into a cozy conversation threatening to send in the chat skwerlz, I am not an ogre (or is it ogress?) either!

However, I will admit to being female, so the avatar is not all wrong...

I quickly turned my tail and fled, bravely taking to my feet, I beat a very brave retreat....

Anyway, yes I agree that each name avatar is viewed differently by each person, and that is what makes it more interesting (though can sometimes lead to embarrassing moments, for example when I though TheGreatElvenWarrior was male :rolleyes:. But then she did have a picture of Sam).

What does my avatar tell others about me, I wonder. And also, after being on the Downs for a while I think that the name Eönwë might be just a little too much. ;)

I do the exact same thing!

There were many people who thought I was male, though I wasn't and still am not.:p

I have judged people by their avatars for two years (and one day, hehe). For a long time, I thought that Eonwe was older than he actually is. For about a year and a half I was convinced that he was in his thirties at least, because of his avatar.
It is the same with Groin Redbeard. I thought he looked like a dwarf because he had a dwarf as his avatar, so obviously, he has a beard!

For me I've only selected a few avatars. My first was a chimp in a pink shirt pointing a gun. I liked it but when I saw the current avatar I liked it more. I have more or less stuck with it throughout. It was selected because it reminds me of me. I'm about as smart as a chimp, but I can dress the part of a smart person and if anybody disagrees I've got my gun.

I do occasionally change when major sporting events are going that I'm interested in. I've been my favorite college football team's logo before.

Anyway, Nog in looking back at your avvies I remember many images and feeling of times past. In particular the second one and the owl. Those seem to resonate the most. I think the second one was around for a while and it was actually the way I imagined you looked for quite some time. But it's also tied to feeling and other memories, certain thoughts I had about this new downer etc...

I think I'm an odd case - I'm kind of stuck with this avatar. I may try something else for a while - penguins (lots of different ones!), other Mucha women, ww theme pictures (ringwraith, Gildor) or I've had very different stuff in the past: a football protest, a raccoon, a chimp, a few Galadriels, Winnie the Pooh etc - but I always come back to this one, it just feels like me. It's a bit weird that I'm so fixated, but I like the bright beautiful colours and Mucha's artwork and the atmosphere in the picture and all that - but I blame my mum who sent/gave me this picture as a postcard several times when I was small always forgetting she had given it to me before. Apparently the picture reminded her of me - well the girl there is kind of thoughtful, lazy and playful at the same time and that kind of fits me. :D

I tend to change my avvie to fit the theme of the game, at least to an extent. (For instance, for I started with a Hermione/books avatar for Lari's game, a Pirates of the Carribean one for Brinn's, the gloves for when I helped co-mod Mnemo's, etc.) Also, if I'm killed I'll switch to one of my Firefly icons, and sometimes I'll put up an icon that tells people in the game what I am (but that's only if I'm being a complete whackjob and has only happened once or twice that I remember.) My icon normally carries over from the previous game until I change it for a new, or forget to change it at all, and I don't have a default because....well, I've not found one I like enough yet, to be honest. (Though I am a bit fond of my Hamlet with a happy ending icon that I made a while back.)

And Lommie, that icon is you to me. I recognize you with different ones, but when I see that picture I automatically know it's you. :)

I am a great fan of Mucha's work as well, (especially your 'Summer' picture) but I could never use it as my avatar - that is a right held by Thinlómien alone!

I gave up on that war. It was a lost cause anyway.

That was my favourite!

As for my avatar; I had a Phodopus roborovskii photo for a while, being my favourite animal, but it was getting a bit dull so I thought that in light of my recent trip to the North Slope of Alaska I would change it to a phalarope. Not deep or meaningful in anyway I fear, but biology geeks never do grow up.

But back to this thread's main question; I am an exceedingly visual person who is just about incapable of seeing users as being independent from their avatars. I get hopelessly muddled and a little distressed when things change, and as is the way of things on the Downs, as soon as I become accustomed to someone's avvie - they change it. Not that's it's a bad thing, but I do find it a bit difficult to find the person again.

I don't know. I actually liked Nogrod's Bombadil avvie, the one where Bombadil is standing in the middle of a wheat-field. It seems to fit Nogrod's personality: he may seem distant, yet has a very Bombadilish attitude when you talk to him.;)

Also, I agree Laurinquë about Lommy's avvie. Lommy doesn't seem like Lommy without it.

Hmm, yes, I think so too. I would say that the Kalevala one and the Bombadil ones are my favourite ones, followed by the owl.

And yes, in my mind, that picture to me is Lommy, unless of course there's a penguin, which is also very Lommy.

Sometimes I get annoyed when someone changes their avie, because I can't spot their posts any more. I mean- it's much faster to glance at avies than it is to read names, especially when you're scrolling quickly down a page.

Since I'm such a considerate chap, I never change mine.

Okay, okay- it's possible my primary motivation is so that I can find my own posts. Plus I love my avie and changing it would feel like... dying or something.

Seriously. I don't think I'd change my avatar for less than a hundred thousand $ or so.

I've tried a few different avvies, but I don't know that I've yet hit upon the 'right' one. Who knows? I may go back to doing without one.

I bet I could think of a worthy incentive... :Merisu:

There's something to be said for "the right one." Caesar has filled that role for me for some time, from the slightly comic aspect to the grouchy old curmudgeon to the hint of assumed royalty to the delectable (and happy coincidental) shade of purple background.

Catching sight of this thread a couple days ago--but not having the time to post--I was honestly baffled that no one had ever started such a thread before. Avatars are, after all, so terribly central to our mental pictures of Downers. Perhaps this is less obvious in the days post-Facebook and since we've had a regularly updated Downs-photo page, but if you take a gander through the "How Do You Imagine Other BDers?" thread, you'll see that our mental images are (or were) chalk full of avatar-based imagery.

I know that, back in the early days, my image of Lhunardawen was decidedly influenced that that Rohirric, blonde image of Éowyn against the blue sky, counter to all truth, and it's only the studious efforts of Hookbill's "Phantom and Alien" comic that have allowed to segue my mental image of the phantom into his Photo page portrait.

It's a shock, if ever one of the old-timers changes. Hookbill changes just slowly enough that it always takes me a good month to adjust, and if Davem, Lalwendë, or Heren ever change, I'll probably have a heart-attack.

That being said... I'm a hypocrite. If something better comes along, Caesar is gone. It's just that, picking up on the "just right" theme... he's going to be a really high watermark to flood over.

Well, there's always the possibility of an alternate just right for avatar (like comic) relief: Hooky's sleeveless Father Formy. :D

Well, from all the avvies I have had the current one is the one describing me as a Tolkien fan the best - it looks like the Tree of Gondor on the one hand, since I am a fan of Gondor and also like Telperion, since I have always somehow liked Teleperion. Since my sign is Leo and Teleperion is connected to the sun, I guess that kind of makes sense.

And the TM initials just stand for my name - The Might... pretty simple really. :D

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...&postcount=723

best describes my avvie process

It grates when someone changes their avatar. Old avatars are like old photographs, images that you know and are comfortable with. But then, I do fear change.

I love my avatar because the colours are so unique on here that it stands out. I changed it once for a few days (to black and white) and it felt so wrong I changed it right back.

I personally recognize people by their avatars faster than I do by their names. Especially because there's already a bunch of words on the page, and the picture stands out more. I like seeing familiar avatars, but variety is the spice of life or something. And I definitely grow to associate people with the images, it's always weird to me when there's an obvious mismatch between someone's writing style, thoughts and opinions, and their avatars. And if someone uses an avatar with some person in it, I (quite naively, but involuntarily) almost expect the forum user to look kind of like that person :)

I always use the same picture for pretty much everything that needs an icon. It represents me quite well since it's my face ;) I don't change self-representing user pictures often, once every few years or so (booooring). I like grabbing on to familiar things on teh Internets.

And I've had the name "Miriena" follow me around for *years*, more than 10 for sure. Yes, I suppose it may seem boring, but I can no longer imagine using another name for a forum where I plan to actually participate, it wouldn't be "me".

Random Title #985
 

I used to change my avvie a ton, but I think that was before there were pixel limits. At first I used a bunch of Elijah Wood pictures, before my crush on him waned and I grew tired of being mistaken for a male.

There was a time when I had a picture of a lady wearing a mask. It seemed to work well with the black background, and it seemed to fit with people's assumptions about me.

I suppose I've kept this one so long because it literally is me! It's a picture of me taking a picture of the Mediterranean sea. At the same time, it's subtle enough to allow me more privacy. All said and done, I mostly haven't changed it because I'm too lazy to search for 60 x 60 pixel pictures on the internet.

It always takes me a bit to adjust to another BDer's avvie change. At the same time, I like to see the variety. My desktop background changes once a week at least.

My mental pictures of posters are also very influenced by their avatar, especially when it depicts a face. When I think of alatar, I think of a young and handsome dude who rides a motorcycle in a leather jacket. Esty is the princess in Shrek, Mith is that pale woman on the painting and Rune is a Karl Marx-looking guy (although now I know he's Ron Weasley rather :p).

In your case I see an unadorned picture of an attractive woman, and I think I would feel cheated if that weren't in fact you. With stylized images you can sort of accept that the person in question doesn't actually look like the pic, but with a plain photo that's harder. You're not a man, are you?

And welcome to the downs!

I like to think of an avatar as a kind of talisman. It's more than just a projection - it's a little bit of internet magic.

I have a cheerful mangatar right now, because cheer is what I need. :Merisu:

I wonder whether I am capricious with my avatar and sig because I am so happy with my Personal Title as a more constant expression of myself? I think I have always changes sigs frequently as they are a thing of the moment and easily changed to suit mood but I had my PT long before I mastered the Avatars.

Aaah. I'm sorry, I really can't pass this up. "But no living man I am. You look upon a woman!" Okay, it's kind of not very clever or original. Especially since I appear with a woman's image in my avatar so it's actually kind of backwards than the situation in which Eowyn said this... That's it, I killed my own joke. Yay.

But yes, my avatar is my own picture, and I suppose I should be cautious when putting an image of my face next to the words I write for easy and undeniable identification, but meh. Although for all anyone knows the other side of my face could look like a giant carved pumpkin ;)

And Lush, I really like what you said about an avatar being like a talisman, that's how I feel as well (but without the ability to express it as clearly as you did, heh).

My avatar is my picture as well. ;)

You obviously haven't visited the Photo page...:D

One thing I learned about choosing avatars comes from observing the Barrow Wight himself. By leaving your border black, you aren't limited to the small square, but become part of the whole page. Guess you could make (up) some psych evaluation from that.

It was made clear to me many years ago, by several members in here, that I'm simply not allowed to change my avatar. I dare not even think which dreadful revenge Bb would think up, should I choose to do so anyway. :p

Am I the only one who found the sudden recent change of a few people's avatar's quite confusing?

I can't speak for others, but my change was strictly temporary. I'm going back to the old soon.

I don't like not changing every so often, but I am so confused by other people's avie changes that I don't dare change mine. I have found a (at least for now) good compromise: I keep the basic avie, but change something in it through paint/Gimp/photoshop every so often. So I'm snowing now. :p

I'm brand new here so I'm still trying to find my place. Current av is Raistlin Majere simply because I identify with the grey-area nature of life.

Doing a HI?
 

I'm a visual person, so I see who posted faster by their avvie than their name. And when the search function disappoints me and I remember that a certain person wrote something on a certain thread, I'd skim through looking for their avatar.

Sometimes I confused Pitch and Zil because of that, since they both have blabk and white avvies. I don't know why them two; I never confuse Lottie, Bethberry, alatar, or anyone else with a white and black avvie... :confused:

Lately I've been going "what on earth?!" when seeing TGEW's new avvie. Even after a few times I still continue thinking if it's Rumil who posted. Something similar happened when Galadriel changed hers from Galadriel to Bombadil. I couldn't believe it was her. :p

I think that out of all the avvie changes I saw the least dramatic one was Agan's. Lions remain lions, after all.

Lol! :D I sometimes think the same way, but then I think again and decide that I don't want to change my avvie in the first place. Instead I change my siggy.

The holiday avatar season has taken off rather slowly this year - I'm glad to see that Bêthberry has joined me by showing a festive image! I'm doubly delighted that hers is from the Father Christmas Letters, which we are discussing this year.