You can make your own 48 by 48 pixel Avatar by making an image in any graphics program. Making an animated image is a little more involved, but can be down in many graphics programs by creating and saving the images as a "gif" file. To use the avatar image you created, you must uplaod it to awebiste and then post the URl of the image in the Avatar area of your profile. As a LOD member you are entiltled to some free webspace on the LOD server as part of your benefits.
dubbsy at Upper Midwest Thundercats message board made mine. The avatars show up smaller on this message board though, so I don't use it on this message board.