Where did your avatar come from?

[XStream]

We have had these threads in the past, and I always enjoy reading about the different FR avatar's creations and their development.  XStream is very special to me, and I would like to read about your avatar.

When I first signed into MyFF I used the name RdNkdHero. It wasn't until after I had been involved for a while that I decided to create a character of my own. I started by thinking through the character's back story. I decided that the character would be a freshman at Patriot University (in Patriot City of course!). In Patriot City it was not abnormal to see superheroes fighting supervillains. There were fewer lesser crimes committed due to the super population in the city. I named the character Mike. Mike gained his super powers from an accident while he was watching a confrontation between a hero and the villain Gigawatt. (another creation of mine)Gigawatt had stolen some of the legendary Chemical X, and planned to create some super thugs to help him ravage the city. Mike climbs the fire escape of a building and is watching the fight take place. During the fight Gigawatt and the hero drop the chemical and Mike is exposed to it. Gigawatt would go on to be Mike's main villain.

Now that I had a back story I started working on a name and design. I knew that I wanted Mike's power to be energy based and I wanted him to be capable of flight, but I wanted to limit his power (because no one likes an uber). Although I have never been a fan of the character, I used the X-Force character Cannonball as a base. I decided that Mike's metabolism would be the source of his power, and the energy generates a forcefield around his body. The field is fairly impenetrable when he concentrates, but he is unable to concentrate areas larger than about three feet or so around his body. So if someone were able to surprise him they could hit him, but if he is aware of the danger he might deflect it. He is also able to extend the field to create "blasts" of energy that mostly had a concussive impact, although he does leave behind a unique energy signature.

I then started working on a design that included a blue and silver body suit. The mask did not cover his hair, the eye holes were rather large, and the opening for his mouth went half way up his nose (think Captain America). During this process I was in the Chat Shack (oh, the memories...) and I was explaining the character to TygerStyles (sp?). I described Mike's energy flow as a stream when he makes a blast. Add my love for the X-Men back then and... XStream was born. It is also a play on words (extreme). I incorporated an X design into his costume and my new avatar was complete.

XStream was a real outlet for me. I was able to be goofy and spastic with the character, and enjoyed the role playing threads that we created. I believe it was Secret Santa when Glitch Girl gave XStream his iconic (X has always been full of himself) look. She took my sad and simplistic skin (yes I did skin back then...sort of) and created one of the greatest designs I have ever seen!

Well, that is my
avatar's origin. What's yours?


Gitch Girl's skin XStream skin for Freedom Reborn


Something that I have been working on. Inspired by Glitch Girl's redesign.

[lugaru]

Lugaru aka Nagual is a concept I've had since I was a kid. Kind of a mix between Sabretooth (logans nemesis) and a shaman. Basically a man with animal spirits inside him. This is the closes I've come to a forum avatar, which was basically me with powers. His powers include strength, speed, claws, instincts, nature control (plants, animals) and mystical curses and spells.



And this is a DC universe online version of the character, looking more his crazy "anti hero" part.



and some info on the Nagual.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagual

[The Hitman]

"Hitman" was a junior high basketball nickname. See, I wasn't particularly good at shooting baskets... or dribbling, running, rebounding, or defending. What I was good at, however, was fouling the other team. The coach would put me in when we ran out of time outs and needed to stop the play clock, 'cause he knew I'd foul a guy. One day, he called me the team's hitman, and it stuck.

My avatar was a real progression. My original logo was a recolored panel from an old issue of Action Comics, Clark Kent was all in shadow except for his glasses. I slapped some blue on it and off I went. This was 11 or 12 years ago I think (whew, that's a scary thought!). When I came here 7 years ago (also scary), I decided to come up with something a little more complex and original. My thought has always been that "Hitman's" identity was publicly known, since he can't turn off his blue skin. That's also why he never had a real costume. I played around with him wearing a suit jacket, t-shirt with an H on it, and jeans (Much like the way I dressed at the time. I was a classy dude in High School.) The look my avatar has now is partially based on my want for a bit more color in the design, as well as my love of Weird Al Yankovic.

[cmdrkoenig67]

Mine is based on my online screen name which I've had for 15-20 years now.  Commander John Koenig (portrayed by Martin Landau) is the leader of Moonbase Alpha in the 70's Gerry Anderson 2 season series, Space:1999.  The series was/is a big favorite of mine and I'm still rather obsessed with it.  At one point, as a kid I wanted to be an astronaut and I also had a love for science fiction movies and TV series.  later when I got online in the early 90s, I took the screen name for my email and as an ID on forums.

When I got into  , I first joined the official  forums as Cmdrkoenig67.  When I discovered this forum, I noticed a lot of folks had superhero names and identities.  Unfortunately, I was drawing a complete blank on a hero name and I really wanted to sign up and join the forum.  So, I ended up sticking with the old standby screen name and decided he could be a space hero (with spacesuit and ray gun), kind of in the vein of Captain Comet, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.  My avatar has sometimes looked very seventies (bell-bottomed pants and all), but I recently updated him a bit with a more Buck/Flash sort of look.  I posted a few past images below.

Dana

[Tomato]

Meh... I want to post in here, but I don't have the energy to type it all out again... So Imma edit my response from the "Spotlight On..." over on Prem's site (mostly to expand on some stuff, though I'm also cutting the Influx background as it's not relevant)

I've told the story of my name and avatar design a few times before, but just to sum up: I was part of a Kingdom Hearts RPG (Kingdom Hearts Elite, which is still going if anyone is interested) and the members would get on chats and do nonsensical things like getting sucked into hell and having smores. However, my big running joke was that anytime I was killed (which happened a LOT) I would eat magical tomatoes that brought you back to life, earning me the nickname, "Tomato."

At one point in the RPG's history, there was this fad of having your RPG characters discuss topics in the "Out of Character" forum, each with their own personality. However, since both my characters weren't exactly me (one was cartoonishly childish, one was sarcastic and slightly goth) I took it a step further, and used my nickname of Tomato to give my own opinion.

As time went on, I began to use the moniker on other sites and games, including a cheap MMO called "Graal" that one of my "friends" at the time got me into. For those who haven't played *cough*anyone with sense*cough* Graal is essentially an MMO version of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I had previously designed a sprited head for something else related to the game (a tomato with a face) but I couldn't figure out what to do with the design... no matter what in-game body I pulled, I just could NOT get Green to look right with Red... so I found a random armor body and went with the semi-classic black/red combo I've used ever since.

Now, I can only assume that the color scheme is what inspired the fire powerset I settled on, because I really don't know where that even came from. But as far as the basic character design goes, despite more than one attempt to update/alter/change the look of the outfit, the design I use now is pretty much the exact same look I used way back when I initially sketched the character.

It wasn't until several month later that I really gave him a true background... when I joined Freedom Reborn, ironically. I've built up this whole history and back-story surrounding his abilities and his teammates in Influx, but for the most part he's stayed pretty simple: he's me with superpowers. I even use a slightly mangled version of my real name as his Secret Identity... Jonathan is the more common spelling of my first name, and Hansburg is my family's original surname before they changed it after WW2 (Germans weren't too well loved I understand... can't imagine why)

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Current and bestest version of Tomato 4evR!

[laughing paradox]

I have a whole universe of comic book characters that I've created when I was a kid. I had a bunch of heroes and villains. Unity was my Avengers.. Teen Unity was my Teen Titans.. give me a break, I was a kid! Anyway, my avatar is known as Saturn King, and he's my pastiche of Superman.



He was the king of Saturn society but is now the last living member from his planet. He crashed onto Earth after trying to escape whatever it was that destroyed his people. The Saturn Crown is the source of his powers. Giving its wearer absolute mental powers, his abilities have been showcased as having super strength, flight, and invulnerability, mostly sourced from psychokinetic abilities. He also has telepathic abilities that he has yet to fathom.

Unknown to Saturn King, though.. he really wasn't the King of Saturn. He isn't even the last Saturnian alive. He was actually an unwilling soldier sent as a weapon to access the planet Earth and determine if it should be invaded. The leaders of Saturn were able to brainwash the Saturn King through the Saturn Crown, even though it's destroying his mind. Will Saturn King break through the brainwashing? And if he does, who's side would he choose in the fight between Saturn and Earth, his new adopted home? Only time will tell...

[Mr. Hamrick]

When I first started here, I used the name Journeyman which was a name I used on a few Unix-based chat havens in the late 90s.   A random conversation between me and an old friend led to the creation of "The Whiskey Saint" which eventually had an avatar created by the late-forum member Paradox.    After Paradox's death, I started to feel a bit uncomfortable using avatar so I opted to just use my name which is "Mr. Hamrick".  There was actually a joke about putting the Mr. there that no one usually gets.  At the time, there was a pro-wrestler who had just debuted in the WWE named "Mr. Kennedy" that would announce himself and then repeat the name "Kennedy" after a dramatic pause.  I started doing that with my name as a parody of him to a couple of friends who are in the business.

Anyways, never really did an Avatar for me.  MJB did an avatar for a "Mr. Hammond" that I wound up creating a character around called "Edgar Hammond" but my name was never changed.  The character was suppose to be based loosely on "Elliot Carver" from the James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" and similar media themed villains.

[Reepicheep]

This is hard to remember. My name obviously comes from Narnia, also shared by my old pet hamster. My avatar himself has gone through a dozen revisions. There was a time he was an amnesiac assassin called Jacob.

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"Dude, check out the hot chick by the counter!"
"Hmm? Mm? Yeah... yeah...."

I remember this. I was right into Katanas at the time. I actually never played Final Fantasy, so had no idea how much I was ripping off Sephiroth. I was more inspired by some character from an old game called Dark Cloud - Still pay homage to it. Reep's sword is called Dark Cloud.

I think the giant claw was kind of an accident...

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Short stumpy legs of doom!

...but I liked it and kept it.

Eventually, I got sick of him not having his own name, so he became Reep the Barbarian.

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His final incarnation.

His Modern counterpart or descendant, however, is Eidolon. Designed by Meejub!

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[Uncle Yuan]

At the time I started playing FF and contributing to the forums at Irrational I was involved in a Champions campaign and Uncle Yuan was my character.

His story is that he is, a his core, an immortal elemental spirit who millenia ago settled in a mountain range in China.  He would occasionally take on a human shape, most commonly an elderly scholar, and interact with the locals.  They soon recognized something of what he really was.  Interpreting this through the lens of their own beliefs they called him a dragon and would ask for his assistance in times of peril.  He typically stayed pretty aloof, though, and would only get involved every hundred years or so and would only intervene for pretty significant events.  He became a local legend and most families had a story of some ancestor's encounter with Yuan Ti.

Moving ahead several thousand years, Uncle Yuan really came into his present incarnation in Utah in the 1870s.  For those outside the US, Chinese immigrants were heavily recruited to work on building the railroads and mining through out the western US.  It was in one of these labor camps that a minor and venal sorcerer attempted to summon the dragon of his ancestral village to aid him in besting a romantic rival.  Feeling the summons and unable to resist, Yuan Ti assumed his favorite human form and arrived as "Uncle Yuan."  But the summoning was faulty and Yuan Ti found that not only was he trapped in human form, but a the majority of his native powers were blocked and he was essentially powerless.

Since that time Uncle Yuan has lived in nearly all major cities in the US and Canada, usually settling in Chinese sections of town.  He usually sets up a small shop as a traditional healer or sometimes fortune teller.  As the years have passed the spell binding him has weakened slightly.  Not enough to allow him to regain his true form, but enough so that he can use some of his powers.  He is very rarely overt in using his powers, and when he does he always masks them by using items, potions and herbs.  The people around him soon come to recognize that there is something different about him and regard him as something of a protector and good omen.

His "official" look is that of a rumpled, old man in a badly fitting second hand suit with a walking cane and a large shoulder bag from which he would draw his "magical items."  The character is inspired by a mix of "Uncle" from the Jackie Chan Adventures and Egg Shen from "Big Trouble in Little China."  But I love the bit from Terry Pratchet's "Thief of Time" describing the character Sweeper, the custodian at a Shao Lin type monastery.  Some brash full-of-himself advanced student get's POed with Sweeper and tries to attack him and winds up getting his a$$ kicked six ways from Sunday.  The Abbott chides him that he forgot Rule One of the monastery: "Do not act incautiously when confronting little, bald, wrinkly smiling men" for the Sweeper is actually the founder of the monastery.  I used this tag line and once kind atisticy folks here started designing avatars (starting with a Secret Santa gift from Carravagio) he was typically depicted as a wondering monk dressed in orange Buddhist robes.

[AfghanAnt]

Oddly the design of my avatar didn't really much since I started posting the old forum.

In fact the only change was my name, background, and powers. I started out as Hyperion, the Hyper-man. It was the first superhero identity I ever created. He was loud, childish and really strange acting. At the same time I had this other online handle, Shaiton Tomoe. Shaiton had some telepathic abilities and lived in this world called ERDA. The name Afghan Ant was inspired by a friend - I liked it so much I kept it. Ultimately, I got tired of the Hyperion name on the forum so I just created a new account as AA and continued to use my avatar. I took part of Shaiton's personality, along with his telepathic powers and added them to these Superman-like power set. Dr.Mike would later re-imagine Afghan Ant as Captain Marvel/Valor concept for the Strangers mod, which I still use to this day.

I will saying my av has certainly changed in the last 10 years...
Hyper-Man Phase (Circa 2002)

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HeroForce Phase (Circa 2003)

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The Strangers Phase (Circa 2005)

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Back to Basics (Circa 2009)

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Fractal Universe (Current)

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[PreRaphaelite]

Quite a good idea this thread. It's nice to see how everyone's "other selves" developed, from costumes to powersets and personae.

PreRaphaelite was never really a superhero, I'm afraid. The username came about because I had no idea what to call myself, and so went with an art movement I had enjoyed a lot before running off to University - hence PreRaphaelite. This was back when people were a lot more 'in character' than they seem to be now, so I decided I really had to make an effort and come up with something. At first I just cobbled together an image of a guy in a jacket with a green tee, goggles, trousers and socks and thought 'That'll do'. The backstory had the character being some kind of empath who could sense but not alter other people's emotions. He would work as a phone-support counsellor for superheroes with problems. I never had a skin because, by this point, I was gradually stopping FXing and then stopped playing the game, so never made one/had one made.

Then, somehow, I became a clone. I don't know how it happened, but I think it stems back to when I had an eyeball as my profile pic. There was a bit of banter on the forum about me being an eyeball, so I did a photoshop-joke of the eyeball growing lungs etc as it tried to turn into a 'real boy'. Then I think Gday shot at me... it's all quite confusing. And after that, and numerous trips to the chatshack, I went from eyeball to 'goopy' (which I thought had died out, but apparently not. To this day I blame Syn, PG and Middy). So, even though I never really use the character, the story I've cobbled together is that PreRaphaelite is the sentient chemical goo that came from a botched attempt to clone a dead PreRaphaelite artist. It's empathic, and shapeshifts randomly depending on what other people 'feel'.

SOMEhow (I blame Mikey), this then became the only official skinned avatar I possess:

Spoiler

So yeah, in layman's terms: laziness in character design turns you into a blob.

[Tawodi Osdi]

My name means good hawk in Cherokee.  I am part Cherokee, and at the time I joined the group, I was deeply interested in learning about my culture and was mildly obsessed with having a Cherokee name.  I have a mild fascination for hawks; so, I looked up the Cherokee word for hawk which is "tawodi."  I thought that was kind of boring by itself and decided I needed an adjective and went with good which is "osdi."  Cherokee adjectives follow the noun like in Spanish, hence "Tawodi Osdi."

For a back story, I accepted a challenge to write a story in the Fan Fiction section titled "Learning to Fly" which may still be there.  Daglob did do an excellent mesh and skin for my avatar which I need to post once I get on that computer and do a screen shot.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

My name come entirely from the Rudyard Kipling story The Cat That Walked by Himself.

My actual fictional persona has changed quite a bit.  At one point I was a slave human being forced to type for his intelligent cat.   My first superhero concept was that of a mysterious ghostly stranger who could transmit his feelings of sadness and loneliness to bad guys around him.  I'm pretty sure this was shortly after my first and only girlfriend decided she would rather date her stalker (I only wish I was joking here) so yeah, that's probably where that depressing concept came from.

I believe it was Lugaru who came up with the only character skin I have which was an entirely original concept he developed--a humanoid gunslinging cat.  This version of my avatar is now my avatar in City of Heroes, and he is extremely fun to play too.

Finally I settled on the concept that I normally use and which I have played on some of the silly forums games on several different forums.  This is a ghostly spirit cat who is sort of a gestalt consciousness for all felines everywhere.  He can only manifest around flesh and blood cats, controls them in a way, and can teleport himself and others simply by winking out of existance in one place and remanifesting in another.  He's generally aloof, rarely does anything helpful in spite of his potentially cosmic level of power and mostly stands around being indifferent.  His canine conterpart of Dogwhocrieswoof whom he has a barely tolerate-hate relationship.

[MJB]

This subject has been approached many, many times but I never get tired of sharing the story for my avatar. The story is quite unique IMO...

10 years ago or so there was a thread on the original MyFF forums about the "Forum Heroes" mod. They held open sign-ups with little or no skill required to join. I really wanted to help out so I signed up. I was asked if I had a skin/name/power set for my character. I had none of these so I was told to draw something up & Volt (of Electric Freedom) would skin my character.

I drew up a picture of what would have been my avatar. It was a cyborg that used junk to build his cybernetic parts. When Volt looked at the sketch he said that it had way too much detail in it for him to skin. He asked me to simplify it & try to get it to fit the Microwave mesh. I drew a few designs but none of them were simple enough for Volt to pull off. He passed the skin off to Ink who designed the original MJB from scratch. When I got the skin I just asked Ink to change the hair color to a dark brown & add a beard. Viola the look was born.

While the Forum Heroes mod was still being produced AlexFF was working on all the hero files & power sets. When he asked me what powers my character had (who at the time was still considered a cyborg) I had nothing. So AlexFF looked over the power set list & said that it would be nice to have a ice based character. Viola we now have a basic power set.

Eventually the Forum Heroes mod died so I just kept the power set/skin & dropped the cyborg angle. Viola the Frosty Freedom Fighter was born.

Early on Mowgli was drawing forum avatars for fun. He did a pic of MJB & asked if the character used his abilities to create weapons. I had never thought of such a thing so I said "Of course I have! He does it all the time!". Such lies... Viola origin of MJB's ice sword.

Dr. Manbot's Chat Shack was a thing of legend in those days. People would stay in there for hours role playing super hero battles, trading cooking recipes, shooting the breeze, etc... During many of our epic role playing sessions MJB would die a heroes death only to show up alive & ready for the next battle. Someone suggested that this must be another of his abilities. The ability to resurrect from any unnatural death. Viola his strangest ability was born.

There you have it. MJB's secret origin. Over the years his costume has went through many alterations. Originally I was much too shy to share my art so I allowed others to play with his costume. Eventually I picked up my pencil & designed my own version. I have pictures of everything from the original Junk Cyborg design to the latest versions but I'm much too lazy to find them. That & I'm sure no one really cares all that much.

Special credit to Gday for the many, many, many nicknames for my avatar. I use them all every day.