My guess, Ungoliant, is an armored Sauron astride an also armored war steed, on his way to do battle with Gil-galad and Elendil at the end of the second age.

Oh goody! I'll have to check those out!

Nope it's not just you Golly. Me can't make it out either. So tell us Taz, what is it supposed to be?

I think Grondy's using a different set of Avatars to us Golly.
The one you are describing Golly, is from a picture of Fingolfin battling Morgoth. The massively oversized blue sword, by the way, is actually his shield.

Ahhhh! Thanks Val! Any links to the original picture then? I tried to enlarge it but it came up v. fuzzy...

I'm still mystified by the stork leg & the feathers though. Perhaps it'll all make sense when I see the full (& larger) version.

[Edited on 17/9/2002 by Ungoliant]

The picture, for those of you who have access to it, is taken from the JRR Tolkien calander 1995, and is featured from November. All the white feathery bits are his flowing white cloak and tunic (which even when blown up resembles a frilly dress). The golden crown is his hair, the blue thing is his shield and the black background is a part of Morgoth's cloak.
The painting, by the way, was done by John Howe.

That took ages rooting through my books and old calanders to find. I knew I'd seen the figure somewhere, and who it was, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it.

Thanks Val! I looked up John Howe & found a link to the pic as well:

The 1995 Tolkien Calendar : http://www.mi.uib.no/~respl/tolkien/howe2.html

It's still fuzzy when I enlarged it, but I can make out Morgoth & the feathery white cloak now. But Fingolfin's got pretty spindly legs, hasn't he?

Hey Tommy, check out the October pic. Don't I look great? Woohoo!

Taz and Plastic, I like your new Avatars.

Nice to see you back Tommie, I missed you. No, I did not see their avatars in the list. They have their names and are just special for the Council members to have.

I wish we could make our own avatars.

It's actually the picture of Valedhelgwath... As I've mentioned elsewhere, Valedhelgwath was an old Middle-Earth Roleplaying character. One day I came across this picture in a magazine that just fitted the image I had of him perfectly. The picture depicts a blond haired Noldor elf from behind. He's wearing a red/brown cloak with a bearskin over his shoulders. His shield has a skull emblem and his shoulder guards have lidless eyes. Val wasn't evil but he did aquire a set of nice armour off someone who was, so the emblems fitted. He also had two chetmigs (like large mountain lions) just like the elf in the picture. You cannot see it in the Avatar, but in the original picture, the elf had blue whirl tattoos on his cheek. Val, after living many years with a tribe of Woses, also had these. The only thing wrong with the picture is the elf is armed with a spear. Val always used a longbow and longsword.

Sorry Mellie but this is currently not possible, I will try and get some more avatars up for you lot at the weekend.

I made the mistake of allowing Celebrian and Amarie to have their own custom avatars So I guess I had better offer the rest of you the same option otherwise I will be swamped with hatred If you have a custom avatar you would like then please email it to me remembering they must be 70x70 in .gif format.

Also for those who do/will be using custom avatars please remember that if at any point you change your profile in Account Settings or under the forum, the custom avatar will disapear as they are all manually entered into the database by me. Don't worry if this does happen as I will happily add them back just don't make a daily occurance of it

Taz, you'r the best fraggle EVER!!!

I really like Allyssas avatar.. It get a good feeling when I look at it

I am afraid Amaire and Celebrian's avatars are original artwork. I am not sure which of the two is the artist (Celebrian,perhaps?), so you won't find anything simliar to these. Allyssa's is on of Ted Naismith's paintings found in the 2002 calendar.
If during my web adventures I find a good site with LOTR drawings/graphics, I will be sure to let you know.

This is really cool, but how can you be sure it's a piccie of the right size and stuff? I dunno anything about computers, so help me out here. I'd really like a nice pic of eeyor as my avatar!!

Sure sure! Send 'em over

I am not a sweetie, I am a fluggy fraggle (Term copyright Amarie).

Merlin the Mad: I think you may find the answer in the following, written by Taz earlier in this thread.

I will add it back MerlintheMad. Everyone who is using Custom avatars. PLEASE REMEMBER that every time you change your profile either from "My Account" or the forum "Profile" link, your avatar will disapear. Please get all your changes DONE before you ask me to upload and edit the database with your new avatar because if people keep on wiping it off I am going to have to stop people other than moderators using custom avatars completely as I simply DO NOT have the time.

Thx

Yer it's really cool, but fraggles rule the roost!

MerlintheMad, Welcome to the forums. I really like your avatar too.

This is a real good AV (avatar).

Welcome to the site, Tar-Aldarion. Hope you have an enjoyable time here. Look forward to reading your views.

And Mellie appears to have one too. Very nice Mellie. Is it supposed to be anyone in particular?

I believe that due to time constraints imposed upon him running the rest of this site, our fluffy fraggle, Taz, will be unable to fix anyone with a personalised avartar from now on unless they have reached a status of at least friend.
I'm sure that given time, he would have been happy to help everyone out, but with limited time and a membership of over 1500, regretfully this is not possible. Unfortunately, personalising avartars is not something we on the council can help him with. Sorry to disappoint any of you.