Hello.
I just put my new (and my first) avatar up. I used photobucket.com to host the image.
It's a photo/drawing (I'm not sure which) of Shirley Manson from Garbage, with some hands grabbing her hair. Since I have no photo programs on my computer (and no skills to use them) I used MS Paint to get the photo small enough. But I still think it's recognizable.
Anyway, I really like photobucket, but from what I've seen on some message boards, they have strict bandwidth requirements, and I see a lot red X's when people use them. But this should be okay if it's only an avatar, right?