So yeah, the title pretty much sums it up. I've looked into the posting options quite a bit, and I'm still rather confused as to how one uploads or inserts images into a post without using an external site. I'd imagine quite a few other people feel the same way, and threads about costumes, icon, and character designs would get a lot more love if there were an easily accessible tutorial on how to post images on the forums.
Anyway thanks very much :)
There is no way to do it without an external site. The external site you use will tell you how to post their images on forums.
Okey dokey, wasn't 100% sure, so thanks very much for the reply :)
I think it would be more accurate to say that you can't do it without an external site hosting your picture. You can then click on the little button shown in the screenshot below, and post the direct link within the tags that appear.
[ img ] http://i.imgur.com/csVmmoR.png [ /img ] <-- Like so, except I added spaces around the "img" tags to demonstrate. It then shows up like below.
It's not super clear form your post if you are aware of this already, although it seems like you might be? I don't know. Imgur is a pretty good site for free image hosting. Imageshack used to be, but it looks like you have to pay now? I tried to post this image with Google Drive first, but that didn't work. It's really not hard to use imgur - uploading is easy, and they give you a direct link right there.
(https://i.imgur.com/csVmmoR.png)