I'm working on a website where we have users that can leave comments and we would like those users to be able to choose avatars. However, we don't want to force them to use Gravatar but rather have local avatars. Now, obviously, there are many plugins that implement local avatars and allow users to upload their own images or choose images from the media library. But this is not what we want since having user uploaded media can lead to all sorts of unwanted consequences, from copyrighted to offensive avatars, etc.
Instead, we would like to define a pool of images that our users can then choose their avatars from. This should not be the entire media library either, but really a given subset that we as admins can expand when necessary. Ideally, the pool would be administrated from the dashboard but if necessary I would be fine with a folder that we upload to using FTP.
So far all my searches have returned no plugins that allow this at all, so now I'm here asking if anyone knows of such a plugin or can point me in a direction so that I can maybe implement this myself (I do have some php experience and even less Javascript experience but if it's not too difficult I could probably get it working with some assistance).
Also, I should add that we want to lock out the normal users (subscribers) from the dashboard, so this choice of avatar should be on the frontend.
Thanks for any help!