This thread is a thread that can be linked (and viewed) but unvalidated users that goes into greater detail regarding common validation issues we face.

Table of Contents
1. Avatars
2. Date of Birth
3. Killer Children
4. Orphans
5. Blood Status & You
6. First Instance of Magic
7. Character Creation Resources

1. Avatars




Avatars are the photographic representation of your character. Avatars put a face to the name and represent you during your time in Hogwarts. Your avatar would be a picture of your character, not their family crest, your favorite stuffed bear or a random picture that you fancied. In addition we do have some restrictions as to what you can use for an avatar (sometimes also referenced as a "face claim.")

1. Do not use a picture of any character from the Canon world.
   • Characters such as Harry Potter are supposed to live in the same universe as yours, you do not look like them. Please choose a face claim for your avatar that is not a Harry Potter character. Players that use a face claim from the Harry Potter series will not be validated if pre-validation and if post-validation they will be asked to change their avatar or it will be changed for them.
2. Do not use a selfie as an avatar
   • Due to security, and wanting the best for our players, it is not allowed to have a selfie as a PFP. This is something that the staff actively checks. In addition, do not use selfies of real-life friends (with or without their permission).
3. Please use pictures that are age appropriate
   • Naturally, the user avatar must represent your character. If your character is 11, please have an avatar that can be reasonably assumed to be near the age of 11 -- no infants, no 80 year old bearded men please. We understand that some people might look a little "young" or "old" for their age, please be reasonable with this.
4. Do not use an avatar that is lewd or pornographic
   • The avatar will be promptly removed by the administration and you may be banned without notice if you fail to comply with this rule.
5. Do not use an avatar of a missing child, murdered or a child that has committed suicide
   • It is not only insensitive to the family and friends of that child but it is also something that is deemed as offensive by the community. Please research the face of the avatar you chose to use, otherwise we will ask you to change it or remove it ourselves. 
6. Your avatar must be of your character
   • Your avatar is your face, not your favorite food or the symbol of your house. 
7. You can change face claims.
   • You can use a different actor, actress or model as your character ages. However the change needs to make sense, they need to look similar. For instance, your character can be a blonde and then have dark brown hair because they dyed it, they could have blue eyes that are now green because they wore contact lenses. Your character cannot be Caucasian one day and then Filipino the next because that cannot be logically explained.
   Common Questions
   
   1. Is there a face claim registry?
      • No, there is no rule against multiple users picking the same (or similar) face claims. We will not enforce a 'first come, first serve' rule for having a character for a face claim and we will not allow harassment between users that wish to 'strongly encourage' players to change their face claim. You may ask once politely, however the user reserves the right to refuse without fear of continues requests to do so or harassment. Harassment is a bannable offense in this community.
   2. Can I use a gif?
      • Yes, but there is a limited file size. This is because we upload avatars to the server here rather than link to offsite. The space on the server is finite, so the file sizes that can be uploaded are also finite. Some may ask if we would allow off-site linking because then files can be much larger, however we cannot allow this because of browser limitations, would breech https protocols, and some players frequent this community with an older device. Players with older devices would not be able to tolerate file sizes being much larger without giving those players significant lag. In addition, this is a phpbb https site, due to this, a mixed content error can happen with linking off-site avatars (you might notice a problem sometimes posting pictures on this site, that is often a mixed content error). These sorts of problems have been reported on phpbb forums such as this older thread for instance.
   3. What are our avatar dimensions?
      • The pixel size of the avatar must be between 260×300 and 520×600. 
      • The file size must be less than 200 KiB
      • You can resize images to fit these dimensions with an image editing program, but if you do not have one there are free versions on the internet such as GIMP. If you cannot download an image editing software or simply lack the understanding, there are more user-friendly options such as Imgur's editing option or using a site like Lunapic.
   4. Do I need to credit the actor or the actress?
      • No, you do not need to credit the artist or the actor, but you cannot claim a piece of art you did not produce was your own. For instance, if you took something from Deviant Art and changed the hair color of the picture you did not draw it, you edited it. Please give credit where it is due if you are planning on taking some of that credit yourself. 
   5. I need help finding an avatar!
      • Google searches for child actors and actresses is popular.
      • Deviant Art, Pinterest and Imgur have a variety of art styles.
      • Finding pictures of an appropriate-appearing anime character (remember they need to have normal human features or have excuses that make sense. So no, they were not born with pink hair but they can dye it pink for instance).
      • There are a number of avatar-makers that use a variety of art styles to make something custom to what you want and is very popular with players. A popular one with players on this site is piccrew but there are a number of other avatar-makers that are just as enjoyable on the internet as well.
      • The Playby Directory is another resource, while the face claims tend to be older here as they are used primarily for adult characters you may have some success or derive some inspiration from here.
      • Additional links and resources can be found here.
   
   
   
   Sample avatar from piccrew, randomly generated.

   Note to moderators: There is another copy of this post in the FAQ section.

2. Date of Birth

Every player on Hogwarts.io starts as a first year student aged 11. There is no exception to this. Hogwarts does not admit "unusually gifted" children earlier nor do they allow older children to start their magical journey late. Magical education for wizarding children is compulsory, meaning that it is required in the United Kingdom since the 1990s, so a child could not have been "homeschooled" as a wizard until they were 16 and then start at Hogwarts for instance.

I am terrible with math, when does my student need to be born?

2017-2018 academic school year, they must be born between September 2005 and August 2006.
2018-2019 academic school year, they must be born between September 2006 and August 2007.
2019-2020 academic school year, they must be born between September 2007 and August 2008.
2020-2021 academic school year, they must be born between September 2008 and August 2009.
2021-2022 academic school year, they must be born between September 2009 and August 2010.
2022-2023 academic school year, they must be born between September 2010 and August 2011.

What School Year am I Starting?

You are starting your year 1 school year this year. So if it is October and you are making a character, you would be looking at making sure that your character was 11 on Sept 1, 1 month ago. During the school year they will age, so by next Sept 1 your character would be 12.

Is there every an exception to this?

The only exception we make to this is players that join the site in JUNE. Students graduate in JULY of every year, so for players that join the site very late in the school year, they may not feel "ready" or "comfortable" graduating to the next year because they want to have the "full" first year experience. These players might create characters that are still as young as 10, they would not be going to Hogwarts until they are 11 in September but the player plans to roleplay in Diagon Alley and non Hogwarts parts of the forum (such as developing their character profile, the out of character areas of the site, and places like London) until they start their school year.

The other exception to this is the fact that on occasion you will see a student that is "too old" to be a certain year. Such as a first year student that was born in 2008. These belong to "old" accounts that have been deactivated, the player has left the community temporarily/permanently, or they never completed their Registration with Index. These players did not start the site as older, they were a part of the site and interacted with players as the appropriate age. They just did not graduate to the next year. You cannot create a character that has been held back for 5 years and is now a 16 year old first year student, but you can create a student now and then come back in 5 years if you are incredibly patient.

3. Killer Children

I have murdered dozens of other kids and I am known as 'death'.

No, you're 11.

My dad was a spy, a ninja, a contracted killer for the mafia, etc. They taught me how to use guns and I an a honed killer.

No, you're 11.

In short, we do not allow "dangerous" people to join Hogwarts, there are prisons and mental institutions for that. If you are planning on playing that sort of character, then e are presently unable to facilitate your desired story.

You can play a difficult character. You can play a @$$hole. You can get into fights and run one another's day, but we are not going to approve off-screen murders.

Is it possible to kill someone after my character is created, on screen?

There is very limited opportunity for this. Again, we are not accepting off-screen murdering of friends, family and neighbors by your character. There are events, sometimes monsters and other opportunities for community engagement that might result in death, this serves as an exception.

My character has a 'condition' that makes them dangerous.

Your 'dangerous' condition needs to be managed/under control to not be in prison. For example lycanthropy is treated with wolfsbane, students are given an adequate supply of this while in school and when sent home on vacation. Failure IC to take it, be it by purposeful omission or a lapse in memory that results in the death of another would be considered "criminal" in character.

How about killing my own character?

We do not allow suicide in this site as a part of our site rating (no self-harm). NPCs do not have the stats necessary to murder your character and having another character murder you is still a crime in character.

4. Orphans

A common trope -- my parents died tragically and I am an orphan.

It is important to consider the fate of orphans if you are going to be playing one.

• Orphanages have not been a thing since the 1900s in the UK. There are no true orphanages in the UK. If a child does not have any parents, or has to be removed from their parents’ care, the child would usually either be cared for by a relative, family friend or would go into foster care. If the child was older (e.g. 15-17), or has a severe disability or behavioural problems, they might be placed in residential care, but these children would often still have living parents that were not able to care for them, so residential care homes would not be true orphanages. If a baby or very young child was abandoned by their parents, they would be placed in foster care but probably adopted within 1-2 years, to provide a stable family and hopefully a ‘normal’ life for that child.
• It makes very little sense for a pureblooded child to be placed in muggle foster care, just like muggle children have birth certificates, medical records and living distant relatives, the same would be true of purebloods and wizard-borns within the magical community. So if your character is a muggle-born placed under a wizarding family's care, that would need to be heavily explained.
• We expect a basic level of competence in terms of society managing your character. We expect them to have a home (we do not accept homeless 11 year olds, sorry), a caregiver (defined as someone of legal age that is responsible for your care and meets your character's basic needs for food, clothing and shelter), and that your character has received a basic education (they can read, write, do math at approximately the level of an 11 year old by the time they enter Hogwarts).

What is needed for me to play an orphan?

1. A logical cause of death for your parents. Your parents should be relatively vital people, possibly with access to magic, so they have access to medical care (possibly even magical medical care) and have their youth. You also have two parents and both of them dying might be difficult to explain but many players have. Please remember, Voldemort died before you were born... so he did not kill your parents. If you have a magical family and you parent died, you will need a better excuse than "my mother died of cancer and decided she did not want to wave her wand and cure it."
2. A disposition for your student character. Basically, who are they living with now and what is your present life situation.

I do no want my student to be an Orphan but I want them to not be with their parents.

This is possible but you have to adhere to certain community standards. For example, perhaps your parents "gave you up" because they could not or did not want to care for your character any longer. A basic reason why, such as 'they were too young to do it well' or 'they did not want to' suffices. Please be aware that we do not accept clearly abusive backgrounds, so claiming you were taken away from your parents because they abused you is not something we accept here. Things are dark enough without you adding in neglect, physical, verbal or sexual abuse. for those that really need to have that sort of background, it has to be something that people 'read between the lines' but the moment you clearly state "my character was molested, starved, beaten, etc. by my parents, uncle, brother, etc. we will be making you edit it out. This is something that we reserve the right to do even if it was a part of your bio (between the lines) and approved if you start breeching our site rating and expectation.

Once you determined why your character is no longer under the care of your biological parents, again you need to discuss their current status. Who are they with, some nice couple that adopted you, a distant relative a friend of the family, etc. You also need to consider their upbringing, if their education lacked in their formative years then you need to make sure that you consider how they 'caught up' because you need to be literate and capable of basic maths as a Hogwarts student so you can in-character learn with us.

I want my parents to die 'for the drama' later in my story.

This is pretty common. We ask again that you adhere to site ratings, explain the circumstances by which your parents died and your character's present disposition (who is their caregiver now). We are not going to allow players to claim that they are a homeless student and that the staff and the Ministry is too 'incompetent' or 'indifferent' to notice. We also will not do the story-writing for you regarding this so set-up your story appropriately,

Blood Status and You

Think carefully about your character's blood status when writing about your character. Your blood-status should effect what and how you write your character.

Muggleborn
If your character is a muggle-born, this means that they grew up knowing nothing of the magical world. If your character does know about the magical world before they got their Hogwarts invitation, that would be a notable exception (and a breech of the statute of secrecy) and problematic. Nobody is going to walk up to a muggle child and tell them about the wizarding world and if someone did the memory wiping charm would make it so that it was not recalled.

If you do know about magic as a muggle born, you will need to figure out how or why. For example, I am a muggleborn, my parents are both muggles and so weren't my grandparents and their parents. As far back as any of us can trace we were simply muggles. That was until me and my sister. My older sister who is now 16 first shown her powers when she was 5, she had a tantrum and everything in the room was overturned like as if a hurricane ran through her bedroom. She was sent to Hogwarts and she is presently a 5th year. I am excited to go to Hogwarts, my sister writes to me often and has told me so many amazing stories! She how I explained it and shown a relationship. I also explained why she would be sharing it with your character and why your character is not memory wiped (they are family, she is a minor sibling of another minor wizard in a first degree family).

Half-Bood
As a half-blood, you have a mixed family. It is likely you got exposure to both worlds. You probably know a lot about wizarding media as well as muggle media, but you should probably detail who and how your life was influenced by these worlds. what do I mean by this? If your mother was a muggle-born and your father was a wizard-born you would be a half-blood. If your mother was a muggle and your father was a wizard, you would be a half-blood. You need to think about how and where these influences came from and how they might apply to you.

For example, my mother was a muggle-born wizard and while magic was a part of my every day life, from watching her do the dishes with magic or watching my wizard-born father leave via broom every morning for work, I really enjoyed visiting my cousins. My cousins on my mother's side are all muggle, they spend a lot of time on something called a "computer" and play a lot of "video games". I am not very good at them and I think they get a lot of practice at home. Because of magic's effect on technology I could never own a "wii" but I always wanted one. Once my mom bought me a "portable gaming device" because I begged her for Christmas, I was devastated when it stopped working a day later. As you can see, I explained the blood connection and why/how I am familiar with some muggle technology but I took care to also discuss how much influence it had on my home life.

Some half-bloods might have almost no knowledge of the wizarding world or the muggle world depending on their parent's values. For example, my mother was a muggle and my father was a wizard. My father never told my mother about the wizarding world until she was pregnant with me, this caused an understandable tension between them and they separated before I was ever born. I have never met my father and my mom gets angry whenever I ask questions about him. My mother told me nothing about the wizarding world and she was displeased when she learned I was a wizard "just like your no-good father." I have mixed feelings on the matter, I think it is an amazing opportunity but my mother considers magic to be "evil" and I am scared that I will disappoint her. A Professor from the school came with my letter of acceptance to Hogwarts, I am not entirely sure what he said to convince her otherwise but she has begrudgingly agreed to let me come to the school. Since then it has been a steep learning curve, witches really do fly on brooms! In this case I explained why the character was familiar with one world and not the other. It adds depth to your character to consider the reasons, how it effects your character's development and what your character's feelings might be.

Wizard-born & Pureblood
Wizard-borns and purebloods have wizards on both sides of their family and have had wizards for generations on both sides resulting in you. There is a veil between these worlds. It is increadibly uncommon, and makes little sense for a pureblood or a wizard born to raise their child with muggle standards. Going to a muggle school because "my parents thought it would be good for me" would indicate that your parents who have had little to no exposure to this other world thought it would be a good idea to send their child who was reared in a magical environment and unfamiliar with muggle culture to a muggle setting and not worry about the statute of secrecy or the potential for accidental underaged magical instances with their child who will -likely- have some showing at some point. Is that to say it is impossible, no. It is to say however that you will need to do a lot of explaining to have it make sense.

For example, I am a pureblooded wizard born to Vincent and Marjorie Van Arsdale. My parents died when I was 3, murdered according to my Aunt Mabel. My parents owned a quaint potion shop and they were robbed, something spooked the assailant and although my parents were compliant with his demands he cast the killing curse on both of them. I was with my grandparents at the time. My grandparents were too old to care for me so I went to my Aunt Mabel, but I call her Ma for short. She is a nice lady but she is a squib so she lives in the muggle world and has a muggle husband named Robert. He is okay but he spends most of his time watching TV. I went to a muggle school until last year when I had my first instance of magic on the playground... In this scenario I am explaining how I was a both a pureblood and raised in a primarily muggle environment. I can discuss how I know some wizard stuff from my grandparents and because my Aunt is a first degree squib or I could claim that there are some family dynamics/prejudices that keep me from the wizarding side of the family.

Often wizard-borns and purebloods are home schooled or they might go to a small community-driven school for young wizards that prepares them for schools like Hogwarts.

If your child is under the direct care and supervision of purebloods or wizard borns and your character has a lot of muggle influences or went to a muggle school, make sure you can answer basic questions:

• Where would the school get your vaccination records? St. Mungos is not really an option for that.
• Birth certificates. Identification. Sure, some of this stuff can be faked with magic, however in this technological age seeing an ID conjured with magic is a far cry from creating records that people can look up on a computer.
• Access would be limited. Do you parents own a car? It is illegal to charm a muggle vehicle. Do your parents as purebloods have a driver's license? How did they manage that! Does a bus come up to your magical household? Do you walk every day to school?
• How about the teachers getting hold of your parents, contact information is a basic need as well. Do your pureblood parents have a cellphone - how/why? Electronic devices do not work in magical environments, your parents would burn through cellphones ridiculously if they work at all. I hope that they did not tell your teacher that they can contact them by carrier pigeon.
• There is also your knowledge deficit. Things like light switches would be foreign to you. when a paper is due, how do you write it without a computer in your home, something pretty much every household has in the modern era but as a wizard you would not have that in your household logically. How did your family manage this?

6. First Instance of Magic

Every witch or wizard has a first instance of magic before they go to Hogwarts, this is that manifestation of that magical spark within you that proves you are in fact magical. Without that first instance of magic you would be considered a squib if you came from a magical parent or a muggle. In Hogwarts long and storied history they have never once admitted a squib and this is thanks to the Quill of Acceptance and the Book of Admittance. 

In a small locked tower, never visited by any student at Hogwarts, sits an ancient book that has not been touched by human hands since the four founders placed it there on completion of the castle.  Beside the book, which is bound in peeling black dragon-hide, stands a small silver inkpot and from this protrudes a long, faded quill.  These are the Quill of Acceptance and the Book of Admittance and they constitute the only process by which students are selected for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
If anybody understands what powerful and long-lasting magic causes this book and quill to behave as they do, nobody has ever confessed to it, doubtless because (as Albus Dumbledore once sighed) it saves the staff tedious explanations to parents who are furious that their children have not been selected for Hogwarts. The Book and Quill’s decision is final and no child has ever been admitted whose name has not first been inscribed on the book’s yellowing pages.

At the precise moment that a child first exhibits signs of magic, the Quill, which is believed to have been taken from an Augurey, floats up out of its inkpot and attempts to inscribe the name of that child upon the pages of the Book (Augurey feathers are known to repel ink and the inkpot is empty; nobody has ever managed to analyse precisely what the silvery fluid flowing from the enchanted Quill is).

Those few who have observed the process (several headmasters and headmistresses have enjoyed spending quiet hours in the Book and Quill’s tower, hoping to catch them in action) agree that the Quill might be judged more lenient than the Book. A mere whiff of magic suffices for the Quill. The Book, however, will often snap shut, refusing to be written upon until it receives sufficiently dramatic evidence of magical ability.

Thus, the very moment that Neville Longbottom was born, the Quill attempted to write his name and was refused by the Book, which snapped shut. Even the midwife who attended Alice Longbottom had failed to notice that Neville managed to shift his blankets more snugly over himself moments after birth, assuming that his father had tucked the baby in more securely. Neville’s family persistently missed faint signs of magic in him and not until he was eight years old did either his disappointed great aunts and uncles, or the old stickler of a Book, accept that he was truly a wizard, when he survived a fall that should have killed him.

In fact, the Book’s sternness has a purpose: its track record in keeping Squibs out of Hogwarts is perfect. Non-magic children born to witches and wizards occasionally have some small, residual aura of magic about them due to their parents, but once their parents’ magic has worn off them it becomes clear that they will never have the ability to perform spells. The Quill’s sensitivity, coupled with the Book’s implacability, have never yet made a mistake.

Source: Wizarding World

The Book and the Quill serve as tools to detect wizards in the United Kingdom which is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Because this is where the Quill and the Book scribe and record names from, these are the regions the Hogwarts accepts students from. They do not and will not accept international students entering their first year of Hogwarts.

About First Instances of Magic:

1. This usually happens between the ages of 3 and 8, but always before their 11th birthday if they are being admitted to Hogwarts.
2. The magic performed is unintentional, meaning that the child did something magical without knowing or planning.
   1. Spells require a wand, the proper incantation, the proper wand movement and intent. This would not be unintentional, therefore would not count as an instance of accidental magic.
   2. Trying to make something move, set something on fire, or making someone suffer with magic you had never used before would also be intentional. If you had the power to will something to happen without a wand or a spell without specific training as your first instance of magic, then you would be a prodigal talent that would have no need for Hogwarts.
3. The magic performed is wandless as they do not get a wand of their own until they shop for school supplies in Diagon Alley. Remember, the wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around.
4. Apparition is not an example of unintentional, wandless magic. While there was some speculation that what Potter did in the canon series "might have been a form of apparition" Source] we are not defining Apparition as what occurred there, but rather incredibly fast movement/temporary flight.
5. Your first instance of magic is a temporary state.
   • Your first instance of magic is not synonymous with an additional power-set that you just always have such as being able to talk to animals, everything you touch turns to ice (like Elsa in Frozen), you can read minds, see the future, etc.

Setting Considerations:

1. These accidental instances of magic are not "so powerful practiced witches cannot undo them." They are instances of magic that can be reversed and rectified via the same means by which other magical mishaps are dealt with.
2. Due to the the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy (also referred to as the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy and commonly shortened to International Statute of Secrecy), if the magical occurrence happened in the presence of Muggles, how this was covered up and explained would need to be included when you are being validated. 

Examples of First Instances of Magic
There are three reasons why magic often surfaces: it just happens, it happened in response to danger as an act of self-preservation, it happened in response to a strong emotion.

1. It just happens: This is magic that just shows up at an unexpected moment for no reason in particular.
   • Your toys ended up in your crib when they were on the other side of the room as a toddler.
   • You sneezed and glitter or bubbles came out your nose.
   • You woke up and your hair was a different color. [It would grow back it's normal color]
   • A small object suddenly disappeared (like a tea cup in your mother's hand) for several seconds.
   • A cannon example of this is when Harry Potter was at the zoo and the glass on the snake enclose disappeared. Potter's cousin fell into the enclosure. A few moments later, the glass returned.
2. It happens as a protective measure: This magic happens when you are in danger and protects you from harm.
   • You were cut by something, but when you looked for a wound it was no longer there.
   • Someone throws an object at you and it bounces away from you harmlessly it hit thin air and deflects the assault.
   • You survive a dangerous house fire. While everything else was destroyed, you are unburnt.
   • You nearly drown, but you don't. You were under longer than a reasonable person could without some sort of damage, yet you survived.
   • Canonically Neville Longbottom was pushed from a great height by a family member to 'force' him to demonstrate his magic (or die trying). He fell from a great height unharmed, demonstrating his magic.
3. It happened in response to a strong emotion: powerful emotions such as fear, sadness or rage can be compelling forces.
   • You are very sad, it starts raining indoors.
   • You are very happy, there is a disembodied melody that is temporarily heard.
   • You are very angry, suddenly the drapes catch fire for no reason.
   • You are very scared of the dark, a small orb of light lights your way home some dark evening.Sadly it is an event you have never been able to replicate.

7. Character Creation Resources

Writing

Character Sheet
https://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.pdf

Name Creation
https://www.behindthename.com/random/
https://www.name-generator.org.uk/
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

Writing Skin Color
https://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/pos ... -words-for

POC Masterpost
Masterpost and references

LGBTQ
Avoiding Stereotypes

Describing Voice
Masterlist for describing voices
Words to describe someone voice

Types of Crying
https://thewritersarchive.tumblr.com/post/49846951484

Personality
Bad habits list
Traits list
Utilizing Character Flaws
List of fears
Secret Masterpost
Writing child characters
Writing emotionally detached people
Writing introvert people
Writing mean people
Writing people of the opposite gender

Mental Disorder and Disabilities
Masterpost
ADHD Reference
Antisocial Reference
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome Reference
Kleptomania Reference
Asperger Syndrome Reference

Body Language
https://writerswrite.co.za/body-languag ... nce-sheet/
https://writerswrite.co.za/cheat-sheets ... -language/
https://savipra.tumblr.com/post/4917225 ... -mirroring

Clothes
Gowns
School Uniform

Avatars

Avatar Help
http://faceclaim.tumblr.com/
http://rphelper.tumblr.com/oldfcdirectory
http://rphelper.tumblr.com/fcdirectory
http://angeldustmt.tumblr.com/fcdirectory
http://faceclaimdirectory.tumblr.com/
http://angeldustmt.tumblr.com/

POC and diversity Avatar Help
http://astridrps.tumblr.com/afccollection
http://fyrpdiversity.tumblr.com/directory
https://hcneybaby.tumblr.com/post/14800 ... sources-in

Sites to search Avatars on
http://www.modelmayhem.com/
http://www.imbd.com/
http://www.listall.com/
http://www.vk.com/
http://www.pinterest.com/

Tips for finding an Avatar
https://aminoapps.com/c/virtual-space/p ... zElY73XQzb

Tools
Family Tree tool FamilyEcho
Family Tree tool FamilyCreator

Thank you to Edric Banes and Marcia Kingsleigh for helping with this list of resources. Please notify a mod if a link is broken.