Anybody's who's spent any amount of time using internet message boards or instant messaging - such as myself - will know that small personal icons are pretty much de rigeur these days. Ezboard is the host of my most frequented haunts and they usually allow one tiny 10x10 icon and one 60x60 icon. So, here are a few that I've used in the past.

I've been using this little ring thing pretty much forever. I drew it in MS Paint myself about four years ago when I first started using the internet intensively. It's the only 10x10 icon I've ever used.

60x60 icons I have used

Approximately in chronological order

To the best of my knowledge this is the first personal icon I ever used. Lacking a digital camera, I drew a picture of myself instead.

Urrrrgh. I can't believe I ever used this icon. This is based on this awful drawing of me.

Cropped from a third self-portrait. Conveys an appropriate level of cynicism but I did ditch it pretty soon. Also available with shades.

At last, my first decent icon! This is Lobo, a little green grinning blob. Lobo is the star of an astoundingly obscure videogame called Lobotomy! in which he has to cross three hazard-filled levels in search of his ultimate reward - a brain. After receiving his brain, Lobo grins thus. Lobotomy! comes bundled with a piece of game-creation PC software called The Games Factory, but I'm not sure this is still available.

I use a number of screen names, but on Ezboard I'm known usually as SamSim. This icon combines the letters of "SamSim" into a sort of pseudo-Chinese pair of characters which flash intermittently.

This is the eye of Hal, the psychotic computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I thought it was kind of appropriate. I'm not sure how many people realised what it was. I have a tendency to bury all kinds of obscure or not-so-obscure pop culture references in my everyday conversation, for the more perceptive listeners to pick up on. It's a life choice which I stand by.

This is a sprite of a character called Bass from a game called Mega Man. Mega Man sprite comics are the bane of the internet web comic scene - so many of them, so few with anything approaching humour - and sprite comics in general are frowned upon. But this particular one is edited from the original sprite to look like he's wearing a suit, which is cool (and more appropriate to me, I feel).

Another modified Bass sprite - only running this time. Pretty sharp, I feel.

This is Sho Totoro from the anime movie My Neighbor Totoro. I have already posted my thoughts on the movie elsewhere on the site. This image is cropped from this image of many Sho Totoros.

Subtlety strikes again. If you know who this is, I'm impressed. It's one of the six people who are polled by hilarious fake news site The Onion each week. The name and occupation of each individual changes each week, as does the question asked and the responses given, but there's always the same six people (and there's always one Systems Analyst). At least one person has mistaken this image for an actual photograph of me.

Most of my icons arise from me seeing something somewhere and thinking "I want to use that as my icon". This time it was Shy Guy, a bad guy from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. I had to hunt for a while to find the sprite sheets from the game, but I think it was worth it. It's also sort of appropriate because I'm kind of a shy guy myself.

This image of a Metroid is taken from one of the bonus image galleries in GameCube game Metroid Prime. I managed to beat Metroid Prime on Hard with 100% items and 100% scans, thereby unlocking all four galleries, and when I saw this image I knew it would make an awesome icon. It took me a while to track down online, but I reckon it was worth it.

This is one of the litte men from upcoming game Darwinia. I know very little about the game - same for everybody I think - but the little men in the feature in Edge magazine appealed to me.

Sam is the dog character from animated duo Sam and Max. (Max is the rabbit.)

A photo of myself. Kind of traditionally what people use for their icons.

Another Sho Totoro picture.

From this. A little explanation: "din mor" is Swedish for "your mum", SZ is a mortal enemy of mine on the Elite chat room who makes din mor jokes incessantly, and Snap is a mutual friend. In context, the video is absolutely hilarious.

From the promotional poster for Sockbaby, a classic amateur movie.

I've used other icons over the years but those are the ones I have available at the moment.

I have a cunning backwards compatibility thing going on. You know after you've been using one icon for months and you switch to a new one? If you stop hosting the old one, then all your old posts (which have your old icon attached) start showing red X's. So what I do is have ONE icon called avatar.jpg (or .gif or .png or in the old dark days of GeoCities, .txt) whose contents I change, thereby changing all my old posts' icons simultaneously.

Icons I haven't used (yet)

PureValkyrie did a sketch of my character in the first PDC story, Dark And Stormy Night (it's somewhere on this site, can't be bothered to link it, go for a look and you'll find the original pic eventually). This little icon is made from her sketch.

Makar, the tree/plant/wood/Korok creature from The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker. He RULES in that game, being the best guy ever. Plays a mean leaf double bass, also.

After The Incredibles became one of my favourite movies of all time I picked out this image from Mr. Incredible's Wall of Fame. I haven't used it as it seems too difficult to make out the face.

Kirby has always been my favourite character in Super Smash Bros., despite being powered down significantly for the sequel, Super Smash Brothers: Melee. Kirby's taunt in particular is very cute. So here you go. A-i-ai!

A variant on the Chinese icon, above, which I never used. The face you can see there is a smaller version of this picture, which was supposed to be a self-portrait, but came out looking nothing like me. Ho hum.