Trying to Find a New Avatar/Icon

You know what’s difficult? Finding a new avatar/icon.

You can see the one I’m currently using on the right. This was my avatar while I was writing Black Hole Son, becuase it illustrated what I was writing. It was my identity. As you can see, it’s pretty bad ass. It reminds one of “Scanners”, “The Fury”, and techno-thrillers. It’s what I wanted Black Hole Son to be, and it’s what I want to represent.

But now I’m writing about mermaids, and it’s hard to find mermaid avatars that won’t make me look like A) a girl B) a sicko or C) a porn freak. First things first, you cannot show any boobies. That eliminates 75% of the pics out there. Now what? I don’t want a mermaid that’s all alien looking, with gray skin and icthyan features. That’s not what the story is about. But if I go with the girly mermaid, that gives the wrong impression.

I’m trying to find something symbolic about the story that I can apply to the my icon, but I can’t think of anything. A single image that represents the story, but it also has to work in a 100×100 square. It can’t be just some wallpaper I shrank down. The image has to have high contrast.

I’ve looked at Magic: The Gathering cards, but the merfolk there look kind of weird. And my story’s not about fighting mermaids, so that’s misleading. I thought about going a different route and doing a sci-fi boat, like in Hydro Thunder, but not enough good pictures there–they’re all screenshots. I tried a drowned world, but it doesn’t really fit for an icon.

What I really want is something that doesn’t exist. I have a perfect idea for the book cover of this piece, but I don’t have the art skills to construct it. I wonder if you can commission people on DeviantArt to make something for you.