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Meta: icon
post #1453931 post #2058923 post #1925950 post #2940948
Also called profile pictures or avatars, icon posts have been deemed suitable for (e621) user avatars.
Standard avatars are solo headshot or bust portraits that usually feature an interesting expression, gesture, or pose, but a much wider variety of images are suitable for avatars. The further a post strays from the standard icon portrait formula, the more subjectivity takes over when judging its avatar suitability. As a rule of thumb, all icon posts should be easily visually understandable in e621's thumbnail format, which is 150 pixels wide or tall. Thus, posts with many details that are lost at thumbnail size are usually not suitable avatars. Eye-catching thumbnails make for great avatars.
Concepts
Avatars are often very personal.
Owned Characters
post #2640437 post #3013915 post #1873960
Many icon posts were commissioned as avatars for the owner of the featured character, but the e621 userbase at large may not want to use such posts for their own avatars because they do not own those characters and have little connection to them.
Humor and Image Formats
post #2806765 post #3410098 post #2227914 post #4254384
Comedy, meme, and especially reaction image posts often make for great avatars because they ooze personality for users to clothe themselves in.
Porn
post #2797296 post #1231309 post #2027585 post #1351519
Users will have split opinions on using porn for their avatar, some users preferring to represent themselves with a more chaste avatar than the content they consume, whereas other users want to proudly display their sexuality in their avatars. Even so, porn often does not make for good avatars deserving of the icon tag because most porn has many small details that are lost at thumbnail size and their thumbnails just don't look like much.
Text
post #626747 post #207414 post #4332851 post #546281
Text in icons should either be relatively large compared to the overall size of post or too small to notice at thumbnail size. Text visible from the thumbnail but difficult or impossible to read at thumbnail size makes for a frustrating avatar-viewing experience for other users because they will feel like they are missing the full context of the image, which is very likely true.
Animations
post #1866248 post #2411723 post #411725
Only tag animations with icon if the content of the animation is relatively static and doesn't change much from the frame e621 uses for the thumbnail.
Scenes
post #3949821 post #3707377 post #3619825
Some posts with a detailed background can function as avatars even at thumbnail size because the background is still understandable and the character still communicates something of interest. The koi fish example here resembles classic koi avatars used in forums around 2010.
Do not confuse with
- collage, model_sheet, multiple_images, picture_in_picture, etc - only tag these with the correct portrait tag. Composited images are not suitable avatars.
- portrait - although portraits are the primary source of icon posts, please be selective when tagging them with icon. Many portraits appear basic or generic at thumbnail size, which makes for uninteresting avatars.
The following tags are aliased to this tag: icons, avatar_material, profile_icon, pfp, avatar_picture, profilepicture, profile_picture (learn more).
The following tags implicate this tag: linked_icons (learn more).
