ComicTards Advice & Help Thread (340 views)

Changing and Creating Your Avatar

If you would like create an avatar using a regular image there are a plethora of ways you can accomplish this. You can simply resize a picture in programs such as Microsoft Paint, Photoshop, or GIMP, but it is also possible to resize images quickly and easily by visiting sites like LunaPic.com or picresize.com. But regardless of what method you chose, the ideal ComicTards avatar size, regardless of format or image, is 150x150. Not only is this the most preferred size, but it gives you the best presented image when it is viewed in the comments section. If one was to go to a site such as picresize, they would simply need to select an image you would like to use, crop the image if needed, resize the image to a custom size of 150x150, save the image as a JPG or PNG and voila! Your soon to be avatar is completed.

Resizing (or rather creating) a gif avatar is almost as simple as creating an avatar using JPEG/PNG. I personally use and recommend a site like toolson.net, but there are other sites like ezgif.com (another one of my personal favorites) and LunaPic.com. From past experience, I've found using site toolson.net tends to be the easier route to use. While using toolson.net, you simply upload the .gif you would like to use, crop the .gif (if needed), and re-size it to 150x150 pixels. Once you resize the .gif you're done and are ready to upload your new avatar!

The third option for creating an avatar is mixing and matching .gifs to create a .gif compilation based avatar. Unfortunately, this process is much longer and tiring than resizing a picture or re-sizing a .gif. The first thing you need to do is make sure you have all the .gifs you wish to combine at the size of 150x150 pixels (as per usual). Once you have that completed, visit ezgif.com and select "GIF Split". There, take each .gif and split them by simply hitting the split button. Once a .gif has been split, select "Download frames as ZIP". Once they've been downloaded open the compressed zip folder in which the files have been downloaded and select "Extract Frames". Select whatever location you wish to place them in, just remember where the location you have chosen. Personally, I always have a folder dedicated to each .gif that has been split, that way there's no confusion as to where the files are located and what they are. Repeat this process with the rest of the .gifs and then head to toolson.net once again. There you simply uploaded the extracted .gif files in the order in which you would like them to appear in your final product. The final product has a limit of 15 MB, so there's plenty of space for files to use. Once all the files are uploaded, you must select the frame interval. I've found a frame interval rate of anywhere between 70 and 80 ms is usually the right pace, but it all depends on how many .gifs you are using and many frames each .gif was. If you chose a handful of short .gifs, then you may want to use a higher ms. If you have chosen .gifs that are made up of many files, then you may be best off using a smaller frame interval. After a frame interval is decided on make sure the animation is cycled and the height is 150x150 pixels and then you're done! You're now ready to use your newly created .gif as your avatar.

In order to change your avatar, go under profile > edit profile > avatar > upload/link. It's important to keep in mind that Proboards will allow images 1MB or under to be directly uploaded to the forum, any image larger than that limit must be hosted. This can be done by clicking 'link' and pasting the URL of an image from whatever web host you are using (I personally recommend using a free host like Imgur). After selecting your method of choice, you're finally done and your avatar should appear momentarily!

Changing Your Theme

Another straightforward task, you can find the option to change your theme under profile > edit profile > settings > theme. From there you'll find a variety of themes, and hopefully one of which tickles your fancy.

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