You, behind that avatar...yeah, you

Prompted by a random comment by a writer of a blog I read, I got thinking about avatars. As a former gamer-chick, I have an avatar or two. For some years I played a mmorpg. In role-playing games you create an avatar that is the incarnation of the character you've created. Most of the gaming I did was gaming for the sake of advancing my character and the group I played with by basically learning and winning any encounter the game developers could come up with. It wasn't until later that I found myself in an actual 'role-playing' environment. That's when I realized I hadn't been role-playing at all, but rather, I was creating an extension of myself. (I actually -sucked- at roleplaying itself and that's a whole other post).

Graphics in games keep improving at an exponential rate - the difference between my earlier character and my last character graphic-wise is pretty big. Some of these are actual screen shots of varying quality, two are renderings done by talented friends. One is from a comic - I like the artist's version of this character .

I really only made three characters. The first was a 'good' healer type character (these games have a good & evil theme, blahblah). Strong, athletic, helpful, feminine, nature freak, loves water.

The next was a gnome - I was experimenting. I wanted to see how differently the same person got treated as a short, funny looking female vs. a willowy, big-breasted siren. It wasn't a good experiment, as another aspect of my personality embodied itself within her: snarky, sarcastic, mischievous. I couldn't help it, it just happened.

My last (and favorite) was an 'evil' healer type character. What she really turned out to be was the first two combined, and she was fun and difficult to play all at the same time. Neither good nor evil, a loner, sexy, stand-offish, funny/warm, sarcastic/sharp, physically strong, emotionally turbulent, compassionate, mischievous, water loving, loyal, sensual, capable, nature loving, kicked-the-ass of monsters, fixed-the-problems of friends. I strive to be this person. I like her. She is me: what I am + what I want to be. (Figuratively, of course, I really don't want to lug that weapon around, or have blue skin).

Whether they're avatars that represent us or images that we hide behind, they're incarnations of some aspect of us. Given my own feelings about my avatars, I'm always curious about the avatars of other people - what face/image/idea have you chosen to represent you, and why?