How did you do that?

If you read through the old comments on the sites I comment on, you'll notice some of my avatars have changed. Now I don't mean the typical "blanket" change (where all the avatars have adapted to something different) I mean that only some have changed. Every odd "normal expression" avatar has now been replaced by the image on the left, and only in the places where it's apropriate. The obvious quesiton is how I did it.

No, Gravatar has not become smarter overnight and detects what's in the post. What I did was, quite simply, I added an e-mail address (using the "plus sign" trick) and set the avatar for it to my "normal" avatar. In posts where I thought the drawing on the right (which I called "wahaha") would be appropriate, I posted under that address, despite not having done the drawing yet.

When I found the time to make the drawing (Thanksgiving break) I replaced the avatar for that address, making it seem like I had gone back in time and changed them all.

I in fact did this, once before, when commenting on this comic. The avatar I wanted to use, called "big no", didn't exist yet. I created the address for it and posted under it with my regular avatar. I then set to work to making the avatar. I thought it would take much longer, being as it was the first time I had drawn one of my characters in perspective, but it was ready in about 40 minutes. The result was no one noticed that it (and only it) had changed. I learned something intersting from it, though: The classic "big no" is with the camera directly above; I drew it as if the camera were in front, pointing down at a ¾ angle.

I also couldn't post this before the character page, because nobody would know who the heckler was.