Draw and host your own avatar for free
Many forums allow you to choose an avatar as part of your profile. Most have a set of pre-done avatars you can choose from. There are a lot of forums that let you upload or provide the url of an existing avatar though. This lets you get a little more custom with your profile. Perhaps you can upload something that is unique to you. Here is one I use. Scott from ExtraLife drew a little bit of a caricature of me and so I use it as my avatar from time to time:

Well, here is a way you can draw your own avatar and have it hosted somewhere for free.
Step 1:
Create a free account at http://mydrawings.com
Step 2:
Draw and save your image. (You can use the link to start a new image anywhere).
Step 3:
When viewing the image, there is a text box on the right side of the page that contains the URL of a thumbnail sized version of your image. You can paste this into the preferences for your avatar on quite a few different forums.
Here is an example from MyDrawings.com:
Here is the link to the original.
3 comments August 17th, 2006