The screenshots from here are great, but they're probably
too big for use as avatars, Draco (which is probably why they never worked for you). So you'd probably have
to use a photo editing program to resize them, and then
would therefore also need a web storage site like
Photobucket, Imageshack, etc.

I've used screenshots for avatar images in the past too...or parts OF them. But I always have to downsize and then save them to my Photobucket account. Once the original screenshots are saved to my computer and altered, then the original screenshot URL is useless.

You can't really use the fanarts, because I never give the
real URL for them, but only the URL for the pages which show
them. Same for the fan images on the site. This is to avoid
stealing of course...

Really steet? I've tried that and the pic always comes up
broken.

No, it doesn't, you can also use pictures directly from this
website (screenshots for example), by getting their URL. But be careful not to use
drawings from artists without asking permission.

Photobucket or imageshack, I've heard, are good sites to
use.

if you want to set an avatar, yes, it does need to have a
seperate web adress. in other words, the image you want
needs to be on the internet.